


Only All The Time

by heartstrings



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Twins, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Family Bonding, Family Dynamics, Family Issues, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Knotting, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mutual Pining, POV Alternating, POV Outsider, Romance, Tender Sex, Twins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:55:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 59,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26664037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartstrings/pseuds/heartstrings
Summary: Being in love with his alpha captain isn’t easy. Being a rare male omega in a world where his dynamic is controversial even less so. But when Patrick’s twin brother Aiden is traded to Chicago and put on Jonny’s wing? Well, everything becomes twice as complicated.
Relationships: Patrick Kane/Jonathan Toews
Comments: 144
Kudos: 612
Collections: 1988: Locked In





	1. Patrick

**Author's Note:**

> I can’t thank thundersquall and trademarkgiggle enough for all of their help while writing this fic. Without their cheerleading, support, and brainstorming I’m not sure I would’ve stayed motivated to finish. Extra shoutout to boodreaus for the always excellent beta. I adore you all so much!
> 
> A quick heads up about the chapters. There will be three chapters from three different points of view. The first is Patrick’s, of course, the second will be Aiden’s, and the final chapter will be Jonny’s. 
> 
> In regards to the heat/rut tags I wanted to drop a quick mention here to let anyone possibly worried about dub-con content that while heats and ruts are discussed Jonny and Patrick do not have sex during either within the fic itself.
> 
> And lastly the title comes from the song Think About You by Kygo.

_____

_**BREAKING:** The Chicago Blackhawks have acquired forward Aiden Kane from the Philadelphia Flyers in exchange for forwards Andrew Ladd, Troy Brouwer, and defenseman Dustin Byfuglien._

_Kane (AAV $5,250,500) is signed through the 2012--2013 season._

_____

“ _Welcome to KZ-FM, we’re Alpha Sports Talk here at the top of the hour with your hosts Richard Flannery and Steven Poirer, and our guest for this morning comes from Sports 670 in Chicago, Jay Zawaski. How’s it going, Jay? What are the Blackhawks up to recently? I hear big things!_ ”

Patrick’s two seconds from switching to a new station when he hears the Hawks mentioned and pauses. He’s been stuck in traffic for the last ten minutes, and if it doesn’t get moving soon he’s going to be late to the airport. Fucking five o’clock jam.

“ _Huge things, Rich! The Hawks just traded half their roster for Patrick Kane’s twin brother, Aiden. I’m joking, I’m joking, but the deal was huge. Three big pieces for a questionable player, in my opinion, seeing as Aiden Kane only scored six goals during the entire 2010 playoffs and only forty-one points in seventy-nine games during the entire 2009-10 season._ ”

“ _Has he struggled his entire tenure with the Flyers?_ ”

Traffic inches forward and Patrick rolls his eyes. Same shit, different day with these sports shows, and for some reason it always seems to be the alphas who talk the most trash. Actually, Patrick knows the reason. Alphas and betas get more leeway in terms of stating subjective and often unsolicited opinions without repercussions. It’s just how the hockey world works. 

“ _Actually, no. His rookie year he was in contention for the Calder with his brother Patrick and new fellow teammate, Jonathan Toews. His sophomore season he scored thirty-one goals and forty-six assists for seventy-seven points. It’s only this last season he’s shown a significant dip in production._ ”

“ _Any idea why that might be and why the Hawks would be willing to risk three major players for an apparent unknown asset?_ ”

“ _Well-_ ”

Patrick switches the station. He’s heard about enough of that garbage for the moment. Luckily the gridlock begins to break up and he makes it to O’Hare with five minutes to spare. He’s hanging around baggage claim when he sees Aiden appear among a group of travellers who likely disembarked with him.

Their eyes connect and Aiden flashes one of his classic _Didn’t you miss me?_ smiles, a backwards cap over his close cropped hair. He’s wearing flip flops, Adidas shorts, and a Buffalo Bills T-shirt, an old gear bag slung over one shoulder, and his cellphone in his opposite hand. He doesn’t look altogether that different from the last time Patrick saw him. Except, the closer he gets, Patrick starts to realize Aiden has grown about another inch taller, because of course.

“Hey,” Patrick says, grinning tightly. He throws his hand up in a little, awkward wave.

“Mini me, what’s up!” Aiden shouts, loud enough half a dozen people around them hear and stare directly at Patrick. They do a double take when they realize he and Aiden look near-identical and then once again when a few of them understand exactly who they are, which devolves into Patrick signing a handful of autographs. Aiden is asked to sign one hat. As the small crowd finally dissipates, Patrick rolls his eyes, shooting Aiden an unimpressed face.

“Thanks for that,” he says dryly. “How was your flight?”

Aiden shrugs as they walk over to his assigned baggage conveyor belt. “Fine, I guess. But I’m starving to death.”

“Chicago Cut?” Patrick offers. Last fall when the Hawks had played against Philly, Patrick’s parents had driven in for the weekend with their sisters and he’d taken them all there for dinner. Aiden in particular had raved about their steaks for weeks afterwards and during the Cup Final they’d eaten there again, more than once.

Aiden’s eyes go a little glassy at the suggestion. “Hell yeah, but let’s go to your place first so I can drop my bags off.”

“Sure.”

They get his luggage and make it back to Patrick’s Hummer, spending fifteen minutes driving away from airport traffic while Patrick listens to Aiden give him shit about owning the ugliest car on the road

“Where’s J-Bone?” Aiden says after he’s worn out all the teasing he wanted to do.

“I don’t know? At home.” 

“Did you tell him I was flying in today?”

“No, why?” Patrick says and he sounds a little irritated to his own ears. “Were you expecting an entire parade procession the moment you landed?”

Aiden looks up from where he was staring down at his phone, texting. He smirks. “Don’t be petty, Patty. I know you don’t want to share him, but he’s my friend too.”

Deep breath in, deep breath out. He hasn’t seen Aiden since June, except for Fourth of July weekend when everyone usually gathers at their parents' house back in Buffalo to cookout, visit, and watch the fireworks. Point is, Patrick hasn’t seen him in months and he doesn’t want to fight, not really, even if he hates that nickname with a burning passion.

“You don’t share, _Denny_. You monopolize. I was giving him a moment to breathe before you showed up and suction-cupped yourself to his side.”

“You make it sound like I’m into the guy and not like he’s, you know, one of our oldest childhood friends,” Aiden says. He turns on the radio and starts flipping through stations.

“I did not,” Patrick counters.

“Did too,” Aiden argues.

Patrick grips the steering wheel and squeezes. They drive for several minutes with nothing but Taio Cruz beating through the speakers.

“No, I just think…”

“What?” Aiden asks. He’s on his phone again, barely paying attention.

Patrick chews at the inside of his cheek. “Nothing. Have you talked to Mom in the last few days? She wanted to make sure you called the movers.”

He’s on Wacker Drive now, and turns into the entrance for his apartment parking garage, punching in his code and pulling through.

“And she couldn’t tell me that?” Aiden says, pissy.

“She said you weren’t answering her messages. Don’t make me the go-between.”

“You sound like Jess.”

“Yeah, and she hates it too,” Patrick says, pulling into his designated parking spot.

“Okay, okay. Christ,” Aiden huffs. “I’m here five minutes and it’s already hostile. Is it almost time for your heat or something?”

Moments like this have happened enough in Patrick’s life he’s learned how to brace himself for them, how to shut down and pull in. Every time he gets on the ice he knows an opponent might, and usually will, try to attack him for being an omega. If it doesn't happen with hits, cross checks, or slashes, then it lands with their words. They don’t hold back. Patrick’s prepared for it. 

He’s never quite as prepared when Aiden makes a dig about it.

He sucks in a pinched breath. “You’re such a fuck.”

The music cuts out when Patrick turns the Hummer off and hops out. He doesn’t help Aiden with his bags and he doesn’t wait for him to walk to the elevators and ride them up to his floor. But he leaves the door unlocked and hears Aiden walk in several minutes after him.

“I’m just kidding!” Aiden says, dropping his luggage by the door. He comes up behind Patrick and yanks him into a one-armed hug, ruffling his hair into a frizzy mess.

Patrick pushes him off. “Whatever.”

He wasn’t in the mood to deal with Aiden’s particular brand of hurt when he woke this morning and he’s even less so now. Not that he has much choice in the matter, not as long as Aiden is playing for the Hawks, and not until he finds his own place to live.

Aiden frowns as Patrick shoves him away. It’s a mocking, pitying sort of look. “Aww, Patty.”

Between the two of them Patrick’s always been the more sensitive one, and Aiden loves to remind him of that too.

“Stop calling me Patty.”

“I didn’t mean it,” Aiden says, straightening. He stares back at Patrick with the same eyes Patrick sees in the mirror everyday. He shouldn’t have to share a face with someone who barely tolerates him. “You know I didn’t. I’m just joking around. It’s not a big deal.”

Patrick glances down at his hands. He’s already started picking at his fingernails again. “Okay.”

Two arms come around him and pull him into a loose hug. “Don’t be mad at me. I missed you. Aren’t you glad I’m here?”

Patrick keeps his arms at his side and sighs. “Of course.”

*

Patrick’s in the kitchen pouring himself a glass of water from his fancy new fluoride water pitcher when he hears a knock on the door. He walks around the corner and into the foyer just in time to see Aiden answering his door. Jonny enters and his eyes widen.

“JT! My boy!” Aiden yells, slamming the door shut behind him and bouncing on the balls of his feet.

Never one to shy away, Jonny immediately yanks Aiden into a full body hug, pounding on his back, and roughing him up like he’s one of the boys in the fist bump line after a satisfying win. He’s never as brutal with Patrick as he is with Soupy or Bolly, and both of those guys aren’t much bigger than him. But then Patrick’s always figured Jonny was gentler with him because omegas are often seen as fragile. Some would even say weak. Jonny isn’t part of the some, but Patrick still wonders if Jonny shields him more than the others out of a sense of duty rather than choice.

“Hey, bud! Welcome to fuckin’ Chicagoooo!” Jonny howls, loud enough Aiden winces and begins cackling. The two of them are so raucous together it makes Patrick want to take a step back, turn the volume down.

They go through their usual ritual of back slaps and head pats, three up top and four down low, a chest bump and a weird fist bomb. Patrick has never understood what any of it meant or why they did it, only that it started the summer they all played together for the Junior Flyers. Patrick and Aiden were twelve and Jonny was newly thirteen. He’d just presented as an alpha. It was the last summer Patrick got to be around Jonny for an extended period of time before he knew what his dynamic was, before everything changed.

“You didn’t show up at the airport, man,” Aiden pouts. “I expected my big Canadian greeting right when I stepped off the plane.”

Patrick rolls his eyes, not that anyone is looking at him. Aiden is such a fucking drama queen. 

“Kaner said you might wanna settle in first,” Jonny explains when they finally disengage from their hour-long hug. “But I did bring you some presents.”

Aiden’s entire face brightens, gleeful. “I do love presents.”

It’s then that Patrick notices the nondescript paper bag Jonny has sitting by his feet. He picks it up, opens it and pulls out a long red lanyard with a key attached. “A key to my place if you ever need anything, wanna come by and chill, or get away from this one for a while,” he says, head cocked in Patrick’s direction, smiling as his eyes flick over and connect with Patrick’s. “Hey, Peeks.”

Patrick’s idiot heart flutters. “Hi.”

Jonny goes back to the bag. “Some paperwork from the front office.” He hands a stack of it over to Aiden. “This is less a present and more of an obligation, but hey, at least I saved you a trip over there.”

“He do this shit for everyone or am I special?” Aiden asks Patrick. 

Patrick shrugs.

“And finally - drum roll please,” Jonny says, making a rumbling noise in the back of his throat. “Your new jersey.” He holds up Aiden’s Blackhawks sweater with A. Kane on the back above the number forty-seven. The number he wore in Philly and at Shattuck-St. Mary’s.

Aiden takes the jersey from Jonny and checks it over from the front and then a longer look at the back. “Almost feels familiar to have that A in front of the Kane again. Right, Patty?”

“I don’t know,” Patrick says. “Was kind of nice not to have to share a name for a while.”

“Ouch,” Aiden slaps a hand to his heart. “He’s mad at me.”

Jonny quirks an eyebrow. “For what?”

“I made a heat joke.”

“You made a shitty joke, more like,” Patrick jumps in. He crosses his arms over his chest, his mouth becoming a thin line. He can feel Jonny’s eyes on him, but he won’t look up. He can’t see that pitying expression on Jonny's face too.

Aiden throws his arms up in surrender. “I said I was sorry. Geez.”

“You didn’t, but okay.” Patrick shrugs. He’s going to become a shrugging machine at this rate. Maybe he can learn to entirely communicate without using words. He’d probably argue with Aiden less that way.

Aiden sighs. It’s what they do. Sighing and shrugging. It’s their own form of arguing without arguing. Level three is usually when things get physical, after level one: the aforementioned sighing and shrugging and then level two: aggressive bickering. “Can you let it go? C’mon!”

He steps forward like he’s thinking of reaching out for Patrick, maybe pushing him around a bit, but Jonny blocks Aiden’s path, wraps a big arm around his neck and playfully squeezes. “Hey, be nice. And maybe go take a shower because you smell like beef jerky and we can’t take you out around downtown like that.”

“Suck a dick.” Aiden laughs, shoving Jonny away.

“Go,” Jonny orders, and gives him a little shove in the right direction.

“I’m going!” Aiden yells. “Where are the towels?”

“In the linen closet across the hall from my room, like always, moron,” Patrick yells back. Sometimes it feels good to be as loud as him, even if it makes his cheeks feel hot.

Aiden mumbles something along the lines of, “Thanks! Fuck you too!” and disappears around the corner. Patrick listens to the linen closet open and shut, then the bathroom door closes and a minute later the shower turns on. When he finally manages to meet Jonny’s eyes, Jonny’s already staring at him, surveying. He walks over to where Patrick’s standing by the far wall and drags him to the living room so they can sit on the couch. It doesn’t feel weird to have Jonny making himself comfortable in Patrick's home, turning on the television, picking the channel, taking charge of Patrick’s space. With any other alpha Patrick would be annoyed. Actually, he’d be pissed off. But this is Jonny, and Patrick wants him here, wants him close, and if he can pretend that Jonny’s his alpha for the temporary moments in between the public lives they lead and the very real friendship Patrick wouldn’t trade for anything, well, no one has to know but him.

“You don’t look happy,” Jonny says, after they’ve watched a few minutes of the Bulls vs. Spurs game. Did Jonny turn on basketball for him? Patrick wasn’t even paying attention.

“Don’t I? You mean I’m not smiling right now?” Patrick says flatly.

Jonny laughs. “More like grimacing.” He reaches out and pokes softly at Patrick’s cheek once, twice, until Patrick can’t help but smile and duck away. 

“Yeah, well. He tries my fucking patience.”

Jonny’s brow knits, his eyes going sad. “It’s been what? An hour? He’s probably just stressed and anxious about being in a new place. Give him a chance to get adjusted.”

“Sure.” Patrick shrugs. Again. He has to stop.

“Peeks.”

“Yeah?”

Jonny’s arm comes up and around Patrick’s shoulders, draws him in until Patrick’s leaning into Jonny’s side. He wants to burrow in. “I’m sorry he said that shit and hurt you.”

“It’s fine,” Patrick mumbles into Jonny’s soft cotton T-shirt.

“It’s not,” Jonny says, and he sounds abruptly fierce. “And if I hear him say it I’ll cut it off. It’s garbage and I’m not letting it fly. But I want you guys to have a good time while he’s here, however long he’s here. We don’t know. It might be for a while.”

Patrick doesn’t know what to do with any of that information so he tucks it neatly away in the back of his brain where he keeps his lockbox of Jonny facts and his alphabetized file folder of hockey insults he’s endured.

He clears his throat, glances down at his hands. He’s been rubbing his palms together all afternoon and the skin feels raw now. “You wanna come to dinner with us? Save me from more quality family time?”

Jonny huffs out a laugh like he’s exasperated, but he pulls Patrick in a little tighter and says, “That’s what I’m here for, bud.”

*

Dinner at Chicago Cut is relaxed and easy. The food tastes amazing and Patrick enjoys making faces at Jonny as Aiden talks about how great Philly was, how beautiful the women were, how he took Mom and Dad to all of the historical monuments when they visited him, how dope his condo on the thirty-seventh floor had been, and how he’ll miss how well the fans treated him. Patrick had stopped by Aiden’s condo a few times during the Stanley Cup series. It wasn't that great. But then, Aiden’s done this since they were kids, compare and contrast, make a show out of what he has and how it’s better than Patrick’s. He’s honestly shocked Aiden made it as far as the restaurant before he began to unload.

Jonny listens attentively and nods along, smiling. To an outsider it appears like Aiden’s just discussing his fabulous life, or if one were to be less forgiving, bragging. Jonny’s heard it all. He knows Aiden almost as well as Patrick does so he’s been through this circus before, he’s seen the show. The fact that he never looks any less interested is amazing. If Patrick were in his shoes, he would’ve checked out right around when the bacon-wrapped dates appetizer was placed on their table. Instead Jonny’s kept up the flow of conversation long after their steaks have come and gone, Aiden finally managing to burn himself out on the numerous ways his time in Philly was spectacular and showstopping. Now they’ve moved on to the perks of Chicago nightlife.

“We should go out,” Aiden says as Jonny pulls out his wallet.

Patrick attempts to fight him for the bill, just a little, but Jonny keeps a loose grip around Patrick's wrist to prevent him from slipping his credit card into the waiter’s leather check holder. Jonny’s hand is warm and gentle and this close Patrick can smell his woodsy cologne mixed in with his alpha scent. If Patrick lets himself linger on it too long, he knows he'll end up resting his head on Jonny’s shoulder, trying to shove his face into Jonny’s neck so he can drown in it.

He sits back in his chair and lightly tugs his arm away until Jonny releases his wrist. He can’t take any chances, not with Aiden right here watching, not in a crowded restaurant.

“Go where?” Patrick asks as a distraction. He wraps his own fingers around his wrist, under the table, where Jonny’s were, and tries to press the heat back into his skin.

“To a club. How about that Underway? Jonny says it’s the best one,” Aiden replies. He stands and straightens his shirt.

“Underground,” Patrick corrects. “And it’s not the best.”

Jonny grins. “You don’t always have to disagree with me, you know?”

“I do when you’re wrong.” Patrick can feel a smile breaking across his mouth. He can’t stop it.

In the lowlights of the restaurant Jonny’s eyes are impossibly dark and glittering. Patrick gets momentarily lost in them.

“I’m never wrong,” Jonny says.

Patrick and Aiden laugh at the same time; it sounds almost identical, like an echo of a sound. Jonny’s expression shifts from amused to absolutely delighted. He’s always loved whenever their twinness revealed itself, even if Patrick’s never understood why.

“Exit is better.” He stands and pushes his chair in, watching as Aiden walks away, leaving his own seat pulled out.

“Exit is too loud,” Jonny counters. He pushes his own chair and Aiden’s in at the same time and they all make their way out to the valet stand. “I can’t hear fuck all. Plus there’s bottle service at Underground.”

“The bottle girls love Jonny,” Patrick says, very happy with how even his voice sounds. 

“Of course they do.” Aiden reaches over and pats at Jonny’s chest. “Big J is a rich, sexy-ass alpha, who wouldn’t want that?”

_Who wouldn’t_ , Patrick thinks. _Right._

Jonny reaches up to mess with Aiden’s hair again until he squawks and jumps back. “Shut the hell up.”

Aiden shrugs innocently. “Hey, I’m just speaking the truth!”

The car arriving saves Patrick from having to stand on the curb and witness them teasing each other for any longer. He hops into the passenger side before Aiden can call shotgun and they take off down the road.

Underground isn’t busy for a Thursday night, but it’s full enough of people to keep Aiden entertained. As soon as the three of them are seated at a table he’s up and mingling with a group of what look like sorority girls by the bar. He waves Jonny over after a few minutes, leaving Patrick alone to sip at his watered-down Long Island Iced Tea. It’s almost instantly apparent which of the girls are betas and which are omegas by the way they interact with Jonny versus Aiden. The betas seem equally as engaged with Aiden as they do with Jonny, chatting and giggling, flirtatious arm touching, lots of smiling. While the omegas look almost entranced by Jonny in all of his alphaness, hanging on his every word and never once bothering to glance in Aiden’s direction.

Patrick can relate in the most painful of ways. When the smallest omega of the bunch touches Jonny’s chest and tugs him toward the dancefloor Patrick turns away and pulls out his phone. He could call a cab and leave. They probably wouldn’t even notice. He could also order a few drinks and get fucking wasted and then maybe he wouldn’t care for five minutes that Jonny would rather be dancing with a teeny mouse of an omega girl than hang out with him, or that Aiden is going crash his way onto the team next week and everything will change.

“Here,” Jonny says, setting a fresh Long Island Iced Tea on the table in front of Patrick. “You look like you needed a new one.”

He’s alone. Aiden’s still by the bar with a few of the girls, the omega Jonny was presumably dancing with now flirting with some other dark haired man.

“You didn’t have to do that.” Patrick tries to bite back his smile. “I saw you were busy.”

“Who? Me?” Jonny asks. He points at himself like a gigantic nerd. “Nah. Aiden needed a wingman.”

Patrick glances back over to where Aiden is holding court, surrounded by three beautiful women. “Hah yeah, looks like he sure needed it. What happened to your dance partner?”

“My what?” Jonny says, as if he doesn’t know what Patrick’s talking about. “Who?”

“The little blonde omega that was hanging off of your arm?” Patrick answers without thinking and then slams his mouth shut. _Shit_. Shit, shit, _fuck_. He picks up the rest of his old drink and downs it in at once, even if it’s mostly all water at this point, and then picks up the new one. He discards the straw and drinks from the rim, two large gulps before he can manage to meet Jonny’s eyes again.

He expects Jonny to have a questioning look painted over his face, ready to ask Patrick why he wants to know a thing a friend wouldn’t care about. Jonny never does, no matter how many times Patrick makes these little slip ups. Just more evidence he doesn’t see Patrick as more - that he’ll never want Patrick as more.

“What omega?” Jonny says and he seems confused. “You mean Callie? She’s a beta.”

“Oh.”

It’s the second time tonight Patrick’s been left speechless. Aiden’s arrival is already flipping his world around and he hasn’t even been in Chicago a full twenty-four hours. What’s the next week going to bring? The next month? Patrick shudders.

“Anyway,” Jonny mumbles, “Did Seabs show you his new fishing boat? I told him not to buy one right at the end of summer. He’ll just have to find somewhere to store it all year, but he said he’d get a better price this way. Like that matters.” Jonny pulls out his phone to show Patrick photos of Seabs’ new boat, but Patrick’s still caught up in Jonny’s revelation.

She wasn’t an omega, she was a beta - but she was acting like an omega. Or maybe that’s how all dynamics act around Jonny. It’s hard to tell. Every time Patrick thinks he’s got a handle on dynamics, or just _his_ dynamic, life likes to prove him wrong.

Or maybe his experiences just aren’t universal.

Patrick’s often wondered what it feels like to wake up every day as a beta, as part of the normal majority. There’s over seven billion people on earth and it’s said that at least five billion of them are betas. It’s an overwhelming number to be excluded from, the kind of number a person could happily get lost in.

*

There are so many new faces on the team that when they walk into training camp the only reason Aiden stands apart from all of the other newbies is because he shares a face with Patrick. This automatically earns him the most amount of attention and praise. The latter from vets who want to applaud his play in the Stanley Cup Finals, and the former from rookies who are enamored of his status in the league and his relationship with Patrick, and who probably want to ogle over a Kane who isn’t an omega.

Patrick’s been through this horse and pony show before, he knows how it runs by now.

“Has Seabs given him a new name yet?” Jonny asks. He’s standing right behind Patrick, his breath warm against the side of Patrick’s neck, and he forces himself to hold still, keep the shiver from singing through his body.

He didn’t even hear Jonny walk up behind him.

“There was a discussion between him and Duncs. They went through Denner, The Big Slam, Country Fried, and settled on Double A,” Patrick explains. He walks with Jonny to the ice now that they’re all geared up and ready to skate.

“Double A stands for?” Jonny asks, obviously amused.

“All American,” Patrick sighs.

“Seems fitting.”

Patrick presses his lips together. “Does it? He’s not the only American on the team. Sounds kinda stupid to me.”

Jonny laughs. He elbows Patrick gently, just enough Patrick loses his footing and has to reach out for Jonny’s arm to keep from stumbling. No chance of that happening with the way Jonny has one arm out, steadying Patrick around his waist before he can even blink. 

“We should take the team out to dinner tonight after we’re done for the day. I don’t want anyone feeling left out,” Jonny says.

“Sure,” Patrick nods, but he’s preoccupied as they take off their blade covers and skate out onto the ice.

Aiden is already on the far end of the rink, surrounded by a group of guys as he entertains them with one story or another. When they were kids and still playing together regularly, Aiden always made friends with everyone on the team before Patrick had even drawn up the courage to say more than five words to one of the other boys. Dynamics weren’t an issue at that point, too young for any of them to have presented yet, but Patrick was still shy around new people and Aiden had never met a person that wasn’t his friend.

Time hasn’t changed either of them much in that regard.

The only difference is now Patrick has a giant invisible O painted on his forehead and Aiden has a lot to prove as the new guy. 

Everything is changing. The evidence is clear as day as soon as Q and Kitchen skate out and start the team on drills. They separate everyone up into groups, an even amount of centers, wingers, and defenseman, and Patrick tries not to notice how they’re broken up into an even amount of alphas and betas too, like it matters, like that actually helps balance out talent or skill. It doesn’t.

Patrick’s the only omega on the team. Last year he had a partner in crime with Kris Versteeg, but Versteeg had been traded during the offseason to the Maple Leafs, where they hadn’t had an omega play in at least twenty years. 

Now he’s alone again. 

He wonders how Steeger is faring in Toronto as the new guy. Patrick hopes they’re treating him well, and if not, he’s sure Steeger is using his smartass mouth to make them pay for it.

The rest of the morning is spent working on drills and finishing out their annual physicals and tests. At lunch Aiden takes the seat next to Jonny and spends the whole hour telling Seabs, Duncs, and Hammer about the gorgeous beta girl he met at the Underground and how he had her text him her number and accidentally deleted it the next day when he thought it was spam. 

It’s not even funny and yet the whole table is laughing, Jonny’s nose is scrunched up in the most adorable way that Patrick gets caught up in looking at him for a minute as everyone else is paying attention to Aiden. There are these little crinkles around his eyes. He hasn’t always had them, but the first time Patrick noticed them, he wanted to reach out and thumb over Jonny’s skin.

“You get lucky at all this summer, Kaner?” Hammer asks. “All the Buffalo omegas trying to suck your dick?”

Aiden snorts. “Omegas? Patty isn’t into omegas.”

“Like you’d know what I’m into,” Patrick bites out. “I did pretty well for myself.” He grins, shit-eating and broad, and not at all genuine.

The truth is Patrick had two flings over the summer and both of them happened during the Cup celebrations while he was wasted and loose enough to ask for what he wanted. The sex wasn’t very memorable, and neither were his rather large beta partners, but they’d fucked him until he’d gotten off, one with a strap-on and the other with a moderately sized cock. They were gone in the morning, didn’t try to call him again, and for that Patrick is grateful.

Jonny suddenly stands and brushes the crumbs off his lap. He grabs his lunch tray as he says, “We should get back to the rink. Scrimmages start in twenty minutes.”

Aiden looks perplexed at Jonny’s immediate exit and turns to Patrick as the others at the table begin to disperse. He doesn’t have to speak for Patrick to know he’s thinking _What the fuck was that about?_ ; Patrick’s wondering the same thing.

He shrugs silently and goes to dispose of his tray like everyone else.

For the afternoon scrimmages Patrick starts on Jonny’s line, playing for the Red team. They win a game against the White team four to three. Then Q switches Patrick to the White team and places Aiden on the Red team, on Jonny’s line, his left wing.

They lose to the Red team five to two. Aiden doesn’t shut up about it for the rest of the night.

*

The first two preseason games are in Detroit and New York. Q sends a rookie crew with Aiden and Hammer out to play, leaving the rest of the vets to stay home and prepare for the two following home games.

Patrick comes over, orders takeout, and watches the Detroit game with Jonny.

“He should’ve shot there,” Patrick says, five minutes into the first period.

“Should’ve shot,” he says again two minutes later.

Three minutes after that: “If he can’t win a board battle he should hang back and wait for the puck, Christ.”

Jonny bumps their legs together, and rubs his hand briefly over Patrick’s knee. “He’s not getting much help from the kids around him.”

“So? He should make opportunities no matter who he’s playing with. I have to.” 

He grabs another hot wing from the basket and stuffs it in his mouth to keep himself from pointing out yet another way Aiden could keep his passes sharper. Maybe he’s being harsh on his brother, but it’s not like Aiden's present to hear it, and besides, he'd probably agree if he weren’t trying to constantly impress everyone around him.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jonny laughs. “You play with me.”

He’s only teasing, Patrick knows this. Jonny isn’t actually offended, but Patrick thinks of how what he just said sounds like from Jonny’s perspective and it stings. It would sting if Jonny were to say it to him. And maybe he is being too harsh on Aiden, maybe he has been since the moment he arrived. It’s difficult to separate their existence and their past from who they are now, how they’ve grown apart, how this distance between them hangs heavy and awkward.

It all used to be so easy when they were kids, before their dynamics were in the way, before Patrick’s feelings for Jonny complicated things, when they were all friends who loved hockey and each other. Patrick misses the simplicity of it, of knowing he was accepted and his place in the world was firm, solid. Everything these days feels as if it might crumple like tissue paper if Patrick pushes too hard.

“When I don’t play with you,” Patrick corrects. “When I get shuffled around the lines.”

Jonny shrugs, calm and assured as usual. “He probably just needs some time to get acclimated to Q’s system. And it’s preseason. This shit doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to Aiden,” Patrick says. It’s one trait they’ve always had in common, their insufferable need to do well, to be the best, to prove they are better. If Patrick’s annoyed at how Aiden’s playing he knows Aiden is twice as bothered.

They watch the rest of the first period in silence, finishing up their food. During intermission Jonny cleans up the mess as Patrick listens to the Wings analysts about the Hawks' play and Aiden’s trade. They don’t have many favorable things to say and he should turn it off, he knows better than to listen to his own press, and this feels like it’s cutting him too, even if it’s not directly about him, but he can’t manage to make himself change the channel.

The second period comes and goes; only four Hawks players manage to get a decent shot on goal with zero pucks going in and Aiden isn’t one of them. He looks even more wound up and pissed off and it doesn’t bode well for the third. Jonny mutes the sound on the TV during the second intermission and tells Patrick about his first day with the Cup over the summer, how his mother had made him put on five different jerseys to take pictures with it, how David had wanted to sleep with it in his bed, and how Jonny told him no. Patrick tries not to think back on his own Cup day and Aiden being noticeably absent the entire week. He wants to sink into Jonny’s story and not dwell.

“My buddy Curtis kept asking me if any player had ever jizzed in the Cup.”

Patrick barks out a laugh. “How would you know? Unless you…?”

Jonny eases Patrick into the crook of his arm. They’ve been migrating closer on the couch as the Hawks get blown out during the third period. “What? No! I’ve got my name on it, that's all the mark I need to leave, thanks. But when I told him that, he didn’t believe me, like there was some secret society of players jizzing on the Cup as a rite of passage.”

“If that is true, I don’t wanna fucking know,” Patrick says, gagging. His hands feel dirty just thinking about it. Maybe he should get up and wash them. He doesn’t want to leave the warmth of Jonny’s body though, not even if the Hawks are now losing six to one.

The announcer on TV tells the audience there’s one last minute of play and as the final horn sounds off, Patrick mutters, “Well, that was a bunch of bullshit.”

Ten minutes later, while they’re watching the end of the Celtics vs. Heat game, Jonny pulls his phone from his pocket, unlocks it, and laughs.

“Your brother,” Jonny says, when Patrick can’t help but look up at him, watching the eye crinkles appear, the gorgeous curve of his mouth.

“What’s up?” Patrick asks, even if he’s not sure he wants to know what Aiden said that put such a bright smile on Jonny’s face. 

“Just one text that says, ‘That was a bunch of bullshit.’” He types something into his phone that Patrick can’t see and turns back to watching the TV. “I swear you guys share a mind link sometimes.”

“Not exactly,” Patrick mumbles. 

Jonny texts back and forth for the next fifteen minutes, until the languid warmth that was settling in Patrick’s bones from being cradled in the crook of Jonny’s arm begins to dissolve and fade. He sits up on the edge of the couch, abruptly annoyed and unsure why. There’s nothing wrong with Jonny texting someone. Patrick’s watched him text people a thousand times, family, friends, boyfriends and girlfriends. He’s pretty sure he’s even walked in on Jonny sexting once in their hotel room. Of course he can’t be sure, but Jonny’s cheeks were bright red and he’d apologized after Patrick had walked in then discreetly excused himself to the bathroom where the shower had turned on moments later.

Patrick was fine with it. Well, maybe not _fine_ , but he understood. Jonny wasn’t his, Jonny would never be his, and that was an immutable fact Patrick had accepted long ago. He knew Jonny would find someone someday, that there might be several someones. Jonny was handsome, intelligent, charismatic when he wanted to be, talented, and an alpha. He could have anyone he wanted. He would end up having anyone he wanted, it was how the world worked for Jonny. It bent its knee for him.

And if he wanted Aiden, he could probably have him too.

Patrick stands up and wipes his hands on his thighs as they suddenly feel a little clammy.

“I think I’m gonna head out,” Patrick says, eyes still on the TV. He can see Jonny’s reflection in the floor to ceiling window on the other side of the room. In the distance is the Chicago cityscape lit up below. Above is only darkness.

“Why?” Jonny asks. He sounds confused. “I thought you wanted to stay and watch Lebron James dominate.” He says it in this voice that makes Patrick’s ears go hot, like he knows Patrick has a thing for watching big men take over a game and control it by sheer will alone.

He can’t…he couldn’t possibly know. No. No way.

“I recorded it. I can finish it later,” Patrick says, shrugging. “I’m kinda tired and we’ve got practice tomorrow.”

“Don’t remind me,” Jonny groans. “Nine AM. Why so fucking early?”

“Because Q likes to torture you. Specifically.” Patrick says and makes his way to the front door. 

He takes a moment to slip on and tie his tennis shoes, Jonny standing patiently by, watching him. When he stands upright, Jonny draws him into a quick hug, one arm around his back and one hand cupping the back of his head. He hides his face against Jonny’s neck, where his alpha scent is the strongest. Patrick has to fight back the shiver that wants to roll through him.

Even when Jonny isn’t trying, he makes Patrick want. He makes him smile. He makes him ache.

“See you tomorrow,” Patrick murmurs, pulling away while he can still manage it. He leaves without looking back at Jonny and the entire drive to his own place he imagines Jonny and Aiden texting and laughing and flirting

*

The first week of the regular season doesn’t start off well with three losses and one scraped-by win, but the following is much better with four wins and an excellent shoot-out victory with goals by Jonny, Sharpy, and Patrick. So it’s a shock when going into the third week Q moves Patrick off of Jonny’s line and down to the second.

_For balance_ , Q says during practice, and reiterates it again while they’re strategizing in a team meeting later that afternoon.

Patrick's in an awful mood for the rest of the day and knows it’s something Jonny will pick up on and question him about. He’ll probably even try to soothe him about it. Patrick can’t handle that right now, Jonny’s kind words or his captainly affection. It’s never the kind of intimacy he really wants and he doesn’t expect more, he doesn’t. Patrick’s learned to live with what he’s given and accept the things he cannot change, blah, blah, blah. It doesn’t mean he’s always in the right place to deal with it.

Instead he avoids Jonny for the rest of the day and goes home to lick his proverbial wounds, watch his favorite TV show, maybe order his guilty pleasure meal and not think about it for a while.

He can’t avoid Aiden. Not when Aiden’s staying with him, always around, forever with a comment on every topic ready to fly off the tip of his tongue.

Aiden walks through the door an hour later carrying his gear bag from practice and in the same sweats he wore to the UC. Where he’s been since this afternoon Patrick doesn’t know and doesn’t care. Setting his bag down Aiden goes to the kitchen where Patrick can hear the refrigerator door open and close. He comes back into the room with a blue Gatorade in his hand. He pops the cap and stands by the couch, not sitting down, just hovering there, staring at the television from Patrick’s peripheral vision. It’s obnoxious.

Patrick waits three minutes before he can’t stand it anymore and turns to him. “What’s up?”

Aiden’s attention doesn’t snap to him, but shifts slowly like sap running down a tree branch. His hair is frizzy and matted to his head from where his snapback was resting. He’s got pit stains and smells a little rank. Patrick wants him to step away.

“Me and J are gonna grab some dinner later, you wanna come?” 

“No,” Patrick bites out. He really hopes Jonny doesn’t come here. The thought of trying to hold it together in front of him is too - it’s - he can’t.

“We can go wherever you want to eat,” Aiden offers, and he seems like he really means it, but Patrick just... can’t. His skin already feels paper thin.

“Nope.”

Aiden walks around the couch so he can look more directly at Patrick. His twisted, pissed off expression is exactly how Patrick feels. “Seriously?”

“Yep,” Patrick says in lieu of telling Aiden to fuck off. He wants to be alone.

Aiden’s mouth tightens, his jaw flexing. Patrick’s used to looking at his own face reflected back at him in anger, he’s seen it enough times in his life. Nothing about it is surprising and yet every now and then there’s this weird cognitive dissonance that makes him feel like he’s actually looking at himself and not another living, breathing human being that just shares most of his DNA.

He watches the frustration build in Aiden before he decides to let it out. “Why are you being such a pouty bitch today? Is it because you got demoted to the second line?” He never was very good at holding it in like Patrick.

But this time Patrick chooses not to hold it in either. “Fuck off.”

Aiden’s expression slides from indignance to confusion to realization. “It is, isn’t it?”

Patrick says nothing.

Aiden takes a seat on the arm rest of the loveseat behind him. “Hasn’t this happened before? I’m pretty sure you didn’t play on the top line the whole playoffs.”

“Did you watch my games?” Patrick asks, deflecting.

“Answer my question.”

“Why? You seem to already know the answer.”

Aiden rolls his eyes. “Stop being difficult, Patty.”

Patrick rolls his eyes in return, mocking. “Leave me alone, _Denny_.”

“I’m sure you’ll be back up there again soon,” Aiden says. He uncaps his drink and takes another long pull, looking at Patrick pityingly.

“Like you give a shit,” Patrick scoffs.

He picks up his phone from the couch and starts scrolling through a few new messages he got from Mom, Erica, and Sharpy, done with the conversation. He almost forgets Aiden’s sitting there for a moment until Aiden stands, frowning.

“Would you even believe me if I said I did?”

Patrick has this memory of them during their first year at Shattuck-St. Mary’s. He and Aiden had made the U-16 team even though there was a U-14 team that was waiting for them. The coach had said they were talented enough and ready to not have to waste a year on a team they were already too advanced for. Dad loved the idea and Aiden was excited to play with the older kids, but Patrick was apprehensive and anxious. He was small for his age at fourteen and some of these guys in the grade above him, like Jonny, felt almost twice his size. The team was composed of mostly alphas and a handful of betas with Patrick being the one, singular omega, Most of them never let him forget it.

It wasn’t obvious at first. They weren’t outwardly rude, they didn’t push him around or call him names, they just didn’t include him in anything outside of the rink. Any team activity like going to the movies on weekends, or hanging in someone’s dorm common room, or playing basketball during free time magically happened when Patrick wasn’t around. Occasionally pieces of his gear would go missing only to reappear in the trash outside by the gym garbage can, covered in muck.

Patrick never complained, never stopped them. He knew it would just make things much worse. He wanted to beg the coach to not praise him in front of the team, he even considered scoring less just to stop the team captain, a piece of shit named Matt Smaby, from staring at Patrick like he wanted to crush him beneath his skate. It didn’t matter in the end because no matter how small or invisible Patrick tried to make himself off the ice, whenever he succeeded on the ice Matt would grow angrier and angrier until he took to calling Patrick by the nickname OB whenever the coach or a teacher was out of earshot. OB, Patrick later learned, stood for Omega Bitch. 

Truly groundbreaking, Matt.

It wasn’t an ideal situation, but Patrick made do as best he could in a situation where his brother was off living the life Patrick wanted and his only friend was popular and always busy. He spent his off time reading and skating, honing his stickhandling, watching movies on his tiny ten inch television in his dorm room alone.

That’s how Jonny found him one Friday night after Christmas break. He was feeling under the weather, his nose red from a cold, and hair fuzzy from where he’d been sleeping on it all day. The dorm was mostly empty at seven o’clock, curfew not for another few hours. Jonny had knocked on his door to see what Patrick was doing and ended up staying, watching Napoleon Dynamite on VHS and eating vending machine Fritos, trying to teach each other Napoleon’s dance moves, until a piece of lined notebook paper slid out from the bottom of Patrick’s door.

It was folded in half and when Patrick opened it, all it said in big, bold letters was _Suck my dick OMEGA BITCH_. 

“What’s that?” Jonny had asked.

Patrick had crumpled up the piece of paper and tried to hide it behind his back. “Nothing.”

Jonny was suspicious. “Then why are you hiding it?” he’d asked. “Let me see.”

It was a moment where Patrick could’ve told Jonny to stay out of his business, to stop asking, but that wasn’t how they were with each other. They didn’t hide things, mostly.

He’d handed over the paper and felt his stomach sickly flip, afraid Jonny would take one look at the nickname Matt had coined for Patrick and laugh, or even worse, agree. Instead Jonny’s face had turned a shocking shade of white, then red, and almost purple as he stood from Patrick’s bed, the blanket around his shoulders falling to the ground, and demanded, “Who wrote this?”

“Matt Smaby,” Patrick had said, head ducked down low.

“Anyone else?”

Patrick had shrugged. “Garrett says it sometimes, Kyle too. But it’s Matt, mostly.”

“Okay,” Jonny had said. “Okay. I gotta go.”

It figured that once Jonny knew how the others felt about him he wouldn’t want to be seen hanging out with Patrick either. Patrick knew. He understood. So he only nodded and watched Jonny leave in a hurry.

He cried himself to sleep that night having lost his last real friend and made the decision to suck it up and just push through the next few years until he could go into the OHL.

In the morning, when he showed up to the rink for practice, he saw Jonny walk into the locker room with a busted lip and a bright purple bruise over the swollen apple of his cheek. He was quiet during bag skate and drills, eyeing everyone and staring at Patrick from across the rink. Patrick didn’t look back, not until Jonny came up to his stall post practice and asked him if he was okay.

“I’m fine,” Patrick had said, confused.

Jonny had grabbed his wrist and held it for a moment, thumb brushing Patrick’s pulse point and making Patrick want to shamefully press his face to Jonny’s sweaty jersey, smell his alpha scent.

“Good,” he said. “That’s good.”

Patrick wasn’t sure what he meant or why he was touching Patrick where the rest of the team might see, but he was glad that Jonny hadn’t completely shunned him after the events of the previous night.

He’d wanted to ask about Jonny’s face, but it seemed like the wrong time.

Matt, Kyle, and Garrett didn’t show up for practice that day or the next, and when they returned they stopped bothering to talk to Patrick altogether, stopped taking his gear, stopped acting like he existed except for during games. It wasn’t what Patrick expected, but it made life more bearable.

Aiden never had to deal with the kind of bullshit Patrick did while they were in boarding school, not while he was in college, or in the NHL. And he never will, because he’s a beta, not an omega. 

“You have no idea what it’s like for me sometimes,” Patrick tells him, suddenly exhausted.

Aiden looks at him for a long, tense minute. “Then tell me.”

He doesn’t want to know, not really. Alphas and betas never want to hear about what omegas go through. 

“I’d rather watch my show, thanks,” he says and turns his head back towards the TV.

“Fine,” Aiden snaps. He stands and walks out of the room. A few minutes later Patrick hears the shower turn on.

*

An hour passes, maybe two, until there’s a knock on Patrick’s front door. It’s Jonny on the other side in a well-fitted maroon henley and dark jeans. He smells of expensive cologne and Patrick can feel himself staring a beat too long before he steps back to let Jonny come inside.

“Hey you,” Jonny smiles, pulling Patrick into his side with one strong arm.

“Hi,” Patrick murmurs, ducking his head down against the grin fighting to spread across his mouth. He doesn’t let his head rest on Jonny’s shoulder. He doesn’t.

They talk a bit about practice, before Patrick redirects the conversation away to more casual topics like the hotel prank Sharpy is planning for Seabs and the new Beta Bauer skates half the team keeps raving about.

“I might get a pair,” Jonny says. 

“Alpha Toews wearing beta gear?” Patrick gasps. “Wait until the Chicago beats get ahold of that info.”

“Those skates aren’t just for betas,” Jonny laughs.

“Tell that to the rest of the alphas in the league still wearing last year’s edition skates because they don’t want to be caught in non-alpha gear.”

Patrick isn’t sure why he’s pressing Jonny about this, he knows Jonny doesn’t worry about dynamics, isn’t one to judge others for their dynamic or how they choose to present themselves to the world. But as an alpha he doesn’t have to deal with the level of prejudice omegas do either. 

If Jonny does end up wearing those Beta skates, articles will be written about how open minded and accepting Jonny is as an alpha. If Patrick wore them those same articles would be questioning if Patrick was purposefully pushing boundaries to get a reaction.

Jonny pulls Patrick further into his side. “They’re insecure and when they’re slow on the ice this season, they’ll deserve to have their stats suck.”

“Yeah,” Patrick nods, wishing he felt more comforted by the thought.

They sit there quietly for a while, watching some McDonald’s commercial play out on TV, Patrick’s shoulders slowly slumping down as he leans more and more into Jonny’s side. It’s making him kind of sleepy and he yawns involuntarily, resting the side of his face against Jonny’s collarbone.

“Don’t want to come out with us?” Jonny asks softly. 

Aiden must’ve told Jonny earlier about their conversation. He wonders if he told Jonny Patrick was acting like a “pouty bitch” or if they barely talk about Patrick at all when they’re together. They’ve been out to dinner multiple times since Aiden arrived, setting into a kind of rhythm. Sometimes Patrick joins them, but it so often turns into the Aiden Show that Patrick feels like a third wheel hanging out with his own twin and his best friend.

“Not really in the mood for people right now,” Patrick says.

Jonny reaches out and catches Patrick’s wrist with his free hand. “Even me?”

_Never you_ , Patrick thinks. 

“I’m just tired, I guess.”

“You feeling okay?” Jonny rubs his thumb over the veins of Patrick’s wrist. He wishes it didn’t feel so nice.

“Yeah, not sick. Didn’t sleep well last night or the night before that.” 

He keeps having these dreams since Aiden arrived and in those dreams he’s thirteen again, newly omega. 

Every year for their birthdays, Dad would measure their height on the wooden slab of their shared bedroom. Patrick was an inch shorter than Aiden that year and it felt like another slap in the face, another way he didn’t fit in with the rest of his family. Six years after Jackie would also present as an omega, a thing they would share in a family full of betas, but it wasn’t quite the same. People expected female omegas, preferred them even, if pop culture was anything to go by.

Male omegas...not so much.

The on-ice comparisons began in the weeks following their birthday. Anytime Patrick did something better during practice, or a game, than Aiden, Aiden was told he was being lazy, he wasn’t pulling his weight like Patrick. For Patrick, any attempt at defensive moves in his own zone were immediately out. He could get crushed against the boards, Dad would say, he was too small and weak to push against alpha boys stronger than him. 

“Don’t fight,” Dad said again and again. “You’ll lose. You’ll get hurt. Work on finding other ways around them.”

It wasn’t altogether bad advice and it ultimately taught Patrick how to skate faster, be better on his edges, smoother with his stickhandling, more creative with his passing. He learned to use his brain when he couldn’t use his body. He also learned what he would be told over and over again throughout his life: omegas are weaker and omegas are lesser.

Never was it made more prevalent than on the nights Patrick would play better than Aiden and he would hear Dad, post-game, talking to Aiden, in the car on the way home.

“If you can’t even keep up with your brother out there, Aiden, how are you going to make it into the NHL?”

Patrick heard a variation of this up until him and Aiden left for Shattuck and through all of their boarding school years. Once Aiden went off to North Dakota with Jonny and Patrick headed to the London Knights, it tapered off, but it still popped up every now and then, years later, and for reasons Patrick couldn’t always pin down.

He thinks of it now, a distant memory mixed with the dream that had woken him up at three in the morning. It was about the time Patrick had managed to get a free weekend off to fly in and catch one of Jonny and Aiden’s games at UND. Jonny had killed it, potting two goals in the third period to push the game into overtime. Aiden, who’d been struggling to get the puck all night, let alone keep it, had no goals or assists and only two shots all game. When he saw a chance during OT to make a breakaway, he rushed down the ice with the puck on his tape and tried to slam it in too early. The puck had pinged off of the cross bar and flown into the boards where one of the opponent’s defensemen had taken it and created a two on one opportunity that ended up as a goal and a win for them.

Dad hadn’t taken the loss well. 

Patrick heard them as he walked out of the arena with Jonny after catching up with him outside of the locker room. Dad wasn’t yelling because Dad didn’t yell, he didn’t have to. He could say everything he needed to by lowering his voice and making every single word sound pointed like an arrow that shot through you.

“Sorry you came all the way here for that,” Aiden had said once Dad had finished his lecture and taken off for the car. He’d be driving back to Buffalo with Mom in another two days.

Patrick had put his hand out for a fistbump. “It was a good game.”

Aiden shoved his hands in his suit pants. “Not really.”

“Dad doesn’t-”

Aiden groaned, cutting Patrick off. “Fuck it. Just. I need to go get drunk. You wanna come?”

He’d looked to Patrick and then Jonny.

“Come,” Jonny had added, arm going around Patrick’s shoulders. “My buddy in Phi Kappa is having a party. Free drinks.”

“I can’t,” Patrick frowned. “I have to fly back out tomorrow.”

“Really?” Jonny asked; he’d seemed disappointed by the news.

“Yeah, we have a road trip we leave for early on Monday.”

“Cool.” Aiden had looked annoyed. He rolled his eyes and had taken off in the opposite direction of Dad, with a single wave. Patrick knew Aiden wasn’t mad at him, not really, he was just feeling burned by the loss and another one of their father’s spectacular twin comparisons.

Still, it’d hurt he hadn’t gotten a real goodbye after making time to come all the way here.

He’d looked up to Jonny, who gave him a lopsided smile and pulled him into a hug. Jonny, who’d grown bigger since Patrick had last seen him the summer before. Jonny, who had forgone his frat party and taken Patrick to an all-night diner on campus instead, talking with him about how Patrick liked Ontario and the OHL while they ate eggs and bacon. Jonny, who smelled even more of alpha, like his _alpha_ , than all of the times Patrick had encountered his scent before.

It’d made Patrick feel wet and achy, embarrassed, ashamed.

He’d had to go to the bathroom at one point and splash water on his face to get his racing pulse to calm the fuck down.

It’s not the first time or last time that’s happened, Patrick’s just better at hiding it now.

“Want me to bring you something back?” Jonny asks, snapping Patrick out of his thoughts.

He shakes himself a little, sitting up on the edge of the couch and disengaging from Jonny’s touch. Every time he sinks into it he tells himself the next time he won’t, the next time he’ll be better, but he never is. Maybe Dad was right, he is weak.

“I’m good,” Patrick says, clearing the frog from his throat. “I already ate.”

Aiden walks out from his room then and grabs his keys from where he threw them on the side table by the door when he came in.

“Ready?” he says, pointing at Jonny.

Jonny glances at Patrick for a beat and then stands when Patrick won’t look back. “Yeah.”

“Cool. Let’s goooooo.” Aiden waves, loud and bouncing on the heels of his feet. He has his hair tousled and he’s wearing a slick leather jacket. Patrick didn’t ask where they were going, but probably somewhere nice by the looks of it.

Jonny nods at him, solemn. “Later, Kaner.”

Patrick watches him follow Aiden out the door.

“Bye,” he says, when they’re gone.

*

In early December Aiden gets a hat trick against the Rangers after going ten games without a goal. The Hawks win in a six to one blowout and the entire team is boisterous and cheerful in the locker room going into a three-day break.

“You guys wanna come over to Patty’s place?” Aiden asks Seabs, Duncs, and Bolly. “Have some drinks, play some Red Dead Redemption?”

Patrick’s still pulling off the rest of his gear as he sits in his stall, listening to Aiden flutter around and invite the boys over to his apartment. It’s not a big deal for the most part. Patrick doesn’t mind his teammates coming to hang out, even less so on a night before an off-day. He just wishes Aiden would check with him first before saying anything.

Mom had hooked Aiden up with a realtor about a week ago, and he spent one day looking over several different apartments and condos littered throughout The Loop, but when he returned to Patrick’s at the end of the day he’d said he didn’t feel like any of them fit just right.

He hadn’t made a follow up appointment. 

Patrick glances over at where Jonny’s still being interviewed for his post game, his expression laidback and relaxed as he discusses how the team did well on the PK tonight and played a full 60 minutes. Patrick wants to wait around and ask if Jonny is going to come over too, but decides against it at the last minute. This is Aiden’s party, he’ll invite who he wants, and that usually includes Jonny. He loves monopolizing Jonny’s attention as much as usual, even when there’s a room full of people around, and this would be no different. Whether Jonny will come or if he already has plans is another thing altogether.

Most days Patrick’s used to being in love with Jonny, used to coexisting with the wanting and the not having. He’s accepted it. Maybe he hasn’t moved on, chances are he never will, but he doesn’t expect anything.

He doesn’t.

Jonny has his own life, his separate relationships, and Patrick stays out of it, he doesn’t pry. In fact, he’d rather not know. It’s like a spiked pit in the middle of his stomach that stings every time it presses against something vital inside of him. He’s used to the pain, but he doesn’t want to make it worse for himself.

Some days, however...some days Patrick wishes he could have just a little bit more.

He leaves the UC before that thought takes root in his brain and he actually considers asking about Jonny’s plans for the night. He drives by Whole Foods and picks up some snacks and alcohol for the boys as he knows his fridge is almost empty and they’ll be hungry monsters the second they’re two or three beers in. He can hear the voices from down the hall once he gets off the elevator on his floor. His neighbors are usually pretty chill about him having people over, the walls are thick, and sound doesn’t travel as badly as it does in some buildings, but it sounds like the music is turned up loud even from outside, that there’s maybe more than just a handful of his teammates in his apartment.

Patrick’s suspicions are confirmed when he walks in to see at least forty people in his place once he walks through the door. Sometimes guys on the team will bring their buddies over when they come to hang out, but this is more than that. This is an entire group of people Patrick’s never met or even seen before milling around in his living room, sitting on his furniture, touching his stuff. He can see Duncs, Seabs, Hammer, and Sharpy among some of his other teammates in the crowd, but their presence is heavily outweighed by all the nameless alphas, betas, and omegas he doesn’t know.

Scanning the crowd, Patrick doesn’t see Aiden anywhere, but he does catch an alpha woman trying to hit on Skills, making him blush up a storm.

He goes into the kitchen to drop off his bags of food and finds Aiden flirting with what appears to be a tiny omega woman, his body leaning into hers as she’s resting her arm on the counter, beside the sink, her head tilted up and smiling. He looks almost an entire foot taller than her.

Patrick drops his bags on the opposite counter, uncaring that he’s interrupting their conversation.

“Aiden, what the fuck?”

The girl turns to look at him, her eyes widening a bit as she scans Patrick from head to toe.

She’s got long dark hair in braids that trail down to her waist and eyes almost as dark as Jonny’s, and when she sees Patrick looking back at her she smiles in a tentative and friendly manner. Patrick feels like an asshole for not returning it, for turning to Aiden and glaring, but he’s too pissed off at the moment to cater to strangers.

“What?” Aiden says, throwing up his hands. It’s the same thing he does every time he gets caught in the midst of trouble, his mouth turning down and his eyes going wide, innocent.

Patrick’s seen it enough when they were growing up, he’s not about to fall for it like their mom usually does. He sighs. “Who are all of these people and why are they in my home?”

Aiden shrugs. “Just having some friends over, it’s not a big deal.”

“All of these people are your friends?” Patrick asks, skeptical. “You know, you could’ve asked first.”

“We’re friendly,” Aiden says, smiling.

The girl standing beside Aiden has stepped back a bit, her focus on the wall and not on them even though Patrick knows she’s listening. He wants her to leave so he doesn’t have to worry about what she’s hearing or what she might say to others. Mostly he wishes Aiden could think about someone other than himself for five minutes.

Maybe that’s asking for too much.

Patrick can feel his jaw tighten, his lips thinly pressing together. “You’re an asshole.”

Another girl, a beta, stumbles into the kitchen, holding a half empty beer bottle and moving around like she might be drunk. She has a pink pixie cut and seventeen rings on her hands, her eyelids are sparkly and she giggles as she bumps into the other girl and starts whispering something in her ear. 

Aiden smacks Patrick on the shoulder consolingly. “Relax, okay. We won’t make a mess.”

For a moment Patrick stands there and tries to breathe and think about how disappointed their parents would be if Patrick kicked his own brother out on his ass with nowhere to go. Sure, he has money for a hotel room and any number of teammates who would give him a room to crash in, but Mom would be upset and Dad would lecture Patrick about not letting silly, off-ice drama affect his or Aiden’s game. He takes all of the words he can feel climbing up from his core and up his throat and pushes them back down, down, down. He swallows the bitter taste away and counts to five, until he can look at his brother again without wanting to lose it.

Pink Hair steps up next to them, her head swinging back and forth as she looks them both over. “Are you guys, like, twins?”

“How could you tell?” Patrick asks and walks out of the room, past the omega girl, who looks incredibly embarrassed, and Aiden, who’s clearly annoyed.

Patrick doesn’t give a shit. He can’t deal with any of this. As he’s passing through his living room, he sees Jonny on the couch with two girls on either side of him, cooing over him and touching his arms. Jonny says something that makes them both laugh and Patrick imagines being vivisected by a rusty knife. The feeling can’t be much different from the sharp twisting and churning that happens inside of him, no matter how many times he’s experienced this particular brand of gut punch.

He walks to his room and closes the door, flips the lock, and goes directly to his ensuite bathroom. He takes a long, hot shower, forehead pressed to the cold marble wall as the spray hits his back, washing away some of the tension he’s built up over the night. 

It’s fine. It’s just one night. Patrick can turn on his TV and block out the noise, and tomorrow they’ll be gone. He won’t think about Jonny or Aiden or how weird and off everything has felt since his twin has fallen back into his world. He doesn’t know how he’s going to adapt to it, but he can’t change it and right now he just wants to forget all of it.

A new episode of Forensic Files is beginning when, ten minutes later, there’s a knock at Patrick’s bedroom door. He considers ignoring it when the knock comes again, a tap-tap-tap, pause, tap-tap-tap, pause, taptaptaptap-taptaptaptap. It’s supposed to be the beat to the song Another One Bites The Dust, but the rhythm is off. Jonny’s rhythm has always been a little off.

Patrick heaves himself out of bed and goes to his door. He unlocks it and pulls it open. Jonny's on the other side with two unopened beers in his hand and a lopsided smile on his face. 

“Hey,” he says, voice low.

“Hi,” Patrick says back, not wanting to smile even as his stupid mouth fights against him.

“Can I come in?”

Patrick wants to say no to this too. Except that’s a lie because he doesn’t, not really. 

He steps back and turns, leaving the door open. “Sure. Lock it behind you.” 

Jonny laughs. “Worried someone might walk in on us?”

He’s obviously joking, but Patrick’s in a weird mood so he doesn’t deflect like he usually would, instead turning and smiling coyly. “Why? You planning on taking advantage of me?”

It’s fun to watch Jonny look like a deer caught in headlights for a second before he shifts into his amused, teasing mode again. “Maybe,” he says, cheeks flushing.

He walks towards Patrick’s bed with purpose and Patrick forgets for a moment what to do with himself, his heart beating so hard it feels like it’s slamming against his sternum. He shakes himself out of it and sits down on his regular side of the bed, ducking his head.

“Shut up,” he mumbles. “I’m just trying to keep your fanclub out.”

Jonny takes a seat on the other side of the bed, kicks his shoes off. He hands Patrick one of the beers, making himself comfortable. “Who’s that?”

Patrick fiddles with the wet wrapper on the Bud Light, picking at the edge of it with his non-existent nail. “The two ome- the two girls that were hanging off of you out there. Or was it three?”

“One of ‘em was a guy.”

Patrick takes a long drink. “Ahh, so it was three.”

“I wasn’t really counting,” Jonny says, mildly. “Anyway, what are we watching?”

He’s propped up against Patrick’s headboard, his legs crossed at the ankles. He’s wearing jersey shorts even though it’s December and Chicago has had snow on the ground for the last week. His skin is paler this late in the year, but it’s still somehow golden and smooth. Jonny looks so good in his bed Patrick’s brain short circuits for a beat. Through all of their years of friendship from Shattuck-St. Mary’s to now, their times in the dorms, and all of their rooming on the road, Jonny’s never been in Patrick’s private adult bedroom, and he’s certainly never been on Patrick’s private adult bed. It’s difficult to focus on Jonny’s question when Patrick’s mind is so desperately conjuring up images of how good it’d feel if Patrick climbed into Jonny’s lap and pressed his face to Jonny’s neck, maybe tried to scent him.

_Fuck._

“You don’t wanna go back out there?” Patrick asks, gritting his teeth and palming his own thigh to squeeze at the muscle until it pinches.

“Nah, I’m good,” Jonny says and knocks the back of his hand against Patrick’s knee, his expression shifting to something gleeful. “We should watch a movie. Something old school like we watched back in the Shattuck dorms when we used to squeeze onto your twin and share stale pretzels.”

Patrick eases himself onto his mattress until he’s parallel with Jonny, only a half a foot of space separating them. He takes another long pull from his beer, strangely nervous and feeling ridiculous for it. “I remember you making me watch The Ring and almost pissing myself when that creepy girl crawled out of the TV set.” 

“Oh shit,” Jonny barks and claps his hands together. “I forgot about that.” He wraps his arm around Patrick and tugs him in until those six inches become less than two. “You hid behind my back until the credits started rolling, and you were clutching at my shirt so tightly it was cutting off circulation to my neck. I couldn’t really breathe.” 

“Are you serious?” Patrick glances up at him. 

“Yep.” Jonny smiles.

Patrick shakes his head at the memory of that night. He’d clung to Jonny out of genuine fear and then he’d clung to him because, well, it’d felt nice to know he was safe and protected, that Jonny wouldn’t let anything happen to him. Jonny was so strong and brave, and he’d never met a challenge he backed down from. He was the kind of alpha, even at fifteen, that grown men envied, and it all came so naturally. Patrick remembers wanting to soak up the rays of Jonny’s existence like he could hold onto them as a keepsake. He kept hoping one day those rays would make him more than the ordinary omega he was, turn him into a stronger, steadier version of the person he wished he could be. It never did. 

“I’m sorry, man,” Patrick says, his ears going hot with embarrassment. “I was such a chickenshit. Still am, I guess.”

“A little,” Jonny says, and when Patrick’s eyes snap up to his as he sticks his tongue out. “But it was worth it.”

Worth it to laugh at Patrick’s idiocy, he means. And Patrick won’t disagree. He tries to sit upright, to grab the remote, but Jonny won’t loosen his hold around Patrick’s shoulders and Patrick doesn’t want to break from his touch so he grabs it with the tip of his pinky and then sinks back into Jonny’s side, his head resting in crook of Jonny’s arm, pressed to his warm body.

“I’m picking the movie tonight,” Patrick murmurs pointedly and turns on Batman Begins.

Jonny groans because Patrick’s made him watch this one at least ten times already, but he doesn’t fight Patrick for the remote and by an hour in they’ve both melted so much farther into the bed that they’re practically laying down for all intents and purposes.

“Quit yawning,” Patrick says after Jonny’s let out his fourth yawn, right next to his ear.

“‘M not yawning,” Jonny says, yawning.

Patrick can feel a yawn of his own building and almost cracks his jaw when it comes. “Now you’ve got me going. Great.”

“S’okay,” Jonny says, his eyes fluttering shut.

Patrick should make him get up and go home. He should. It’s just that he’s so comfortable and warm wrapped up by Jonny’s side that he feels this calming, tingling wave wash through him. It’s so soothing Patrick feels like he’s been hit with the best kind of drug, and he didn’t even finish that one beer Jonny gave him. 

He falls asleep shortly behind Jonny, skin buzzing and a pleasant heat filling his belly.

When he wakes in the morning, the feeling is still there, but now it’s expanded from his center out to his arms and legs, up his spine until his head feels a little heavy and everything around him is liquid.

Patrick doesn’t open his eyes. He doesn’t want the day to begin yet. If he opens his eyes and speaks that might break whatever spell has Jonny still here, in his bed, spooned up behind Patrick and pressed against him like they belong together. 

This won’t last, but Patrick wants to pretend, just for a few more minutes.

He tries to inch backward so he can feel Jonny’s chest fully against his back, absorb his warmth and smell his sleepy scent. He doesn’t mean to rock his hips into Jonny’s, but once he does, he hears Jonny let out a breathy moan and then Jonny’s arm is tightening around Patrick’s middle, drawing them impossibly closer until Patrick’s ass is pressed to the cradle of Jonny’s crotch and the hard on that’s waiting there.

The realization that Jonny’s thick cock is resting against the seam of Patrick’s barely clothed ass has his skin prickling all over and his head swimming. The tingling has shifted into something more urgent, a vibrating that makes him _want_ , makes him _need_.

He undulates his hips and feels Jonny move with him, rocking with him, grinding in. 

Patrick knows he shouldn’t. He shouldn’t. It’s wrong.

But he’s imagining how good it would feel if Jonny pulled Patrick’s pajama pants down and shoved his dick inside of Patrick’s wet, leaking hole. The thought makes a spurt of slick seep out of him and into his pants and still Patrick can’t make himself stop. He _wants_. He wants this and why can’t he have this? Why can’t he have Jonny? Jonny, his best friend and his captain. Jonny: his big, strong alpha. 

They’re rubbing against each other with more purpose now, Jonny nuzzling his face against Patrick’s nape, and it’s so goddamn good Patrick’s losing his mind. He needs a little more, bare skin on skin, Jonny’s fingers inside of him. That’s not too much. Not really.

If Jonny can give him that then it’ll be okay. The fire that’s building will calm down.

A few fingers and then maybe Jonny’s cock, maybe his knot.

He could put a baby inside of Patrick. Patrick would let him. Patrick would let his alpha do anything he wanted.

“ _Alpha_ ,” he whimpers out loud and his eyes abruptly fly open.

Patrick goes completely still and thinks back to what he just said, what he just did, where he’s at and the way he feels overheated and itchy, like he wants to crawl out of his own body.

Oh fuck. 

_No_.

No no no no nonononnonono.

He pulls out of Jonny’s arms and sits up, trying to scramble away to the edge of the bed, his breathing labored and quick.

Jonny’s eyes are open now too, his cheeks blotchy and his expression uncertain.

He reaches out for Patrick and Patrick wants to go to him so badly he can feel more slick filling him up and leaking out. The desire to climb into Jonny’s lap and beg Jonny to fuck him is like a gnawing pain dragging through every one of his nerve endings and all of his bones.

Patrick moves farther away, wrapping his arms around himself so he won’t reach out in return.

“Peeks?” Jonny asks and he sounds scared.

Patrick takes a breath and tries to focus his thoughts beyond Jonny and need and please, please, please. “I think my heat is starting.”

“Oh shit,” Jonny says, and moves out of Patrick’s bed, stumbling to his feet. “I...fuck. I should go.” 

_Don’t_ , Patrick wants to say. _Stay, please stay. Alpha._

He reaches for Jonny then, even though he told himself moments ago he wouldn’t, and Jonny doesn’t move, but he doesn’t take a step back either and it’s hard to remember why Patrick shouldn’t go to him. He should. Jonny’s alpha. Jonny’s right and he’s perfect and he’s Patrick’s.

He crawls across the bed until he’s in front of Jonny, until he can press his face to Jonny’s chest and smell him, his skin and his sweat, his fading cologne and his distinct alpha scent. Patrick rubs his face over Jonny’s collarbone and looks up to see Jonny’s pained expression. Patrick doesn’t understand that. Is he not being good? Is he being a bad omega? 

He feels Jonny touch his hair and it lights him up inside. Jonny touched him, Jonny wants him, he’s good, he’s okay. He just needs to get closer so Jonny can have him.

He tries to wrap his arms around Jonny’s neck, but two hands loop around his wrists and stop him.

“Patrick, no,” Jonny says, frowning. He closes his eyes and swallows. He looks so sad, Patrick doesn’t understand.

“No?” he whines. 

“I’m sorry, baby. I have to go,” Jonny says. He kisses one of Patrick’s wrists, gently on the pulse point, and lets them go, steps away, again and again. His cheeks are so red and his hairline is wet. He balls his hands into fists. “Can’t stay. I’ll go get Aiden.”

“Jonny,” he begs. He’ll get on his knees if Jonny wants. He’ll do anything. _Anything_.

“It’ll be okay,” Jonny says as he moves toward the door. “Just stay here. Don’t move.” He uses his alpha voice and Patrick shudders so hard he collapses back to the bed. “Okay?”

“Won’t move,” he tells Jonny as he begins to shake. 

Alpha said don’t move and he won’t move. He’ll be good. Good for his alpha. And then maybe his alpha will come back to him.

The room is starting to spin and Patrick’s clothes are beginning to feel like fire everywhere they’re touching his skin. He said he wouldn’t move, but he needs to be naked, he needs to touch himself to make the burning stop.

Time slips and turns as his head goes heavy and the walls feel like they’re swaying.

He’s felt this before but it’s hard to remember anything, think of anything besides the clawing need to touch and be touched, to obey his alpha and wait for him to come back so he can fill Patrick up and knot him over and over just like they were made to be, tied together always.

“Patty?” a voice says and it sounds familiar. 

It isn’t Jonny and for a moment Patrick wants to keep his eyes closed and just lay here, because nothing else matters. But then he hears his name again and it’s like a switch being flipped, dragging him briefly back to reality.

He looks up and sees Aiden standing over him, worried, and tugging at his ear. “You okay?”

“No,” Patrick croaks out. It’s difficult to string coherent thoughts together or remember what’s part of his imagination and what’s reality. Everything is bleeding together and the further he sinks into his heat, the harder it’ll be for him to think or speak.

He doesn’t know why his heat came on so suddenly or what triggered it, but this is entirely unexpected and way too early. His last heat wasn’t even four months ago. He should’ve had at least two more months before anything happened. Enough time to double up on his suppressants so he would only need to miss a day or two of hockey before he was back to himself again.

It’s much too late now. He didn’t take his heat suppressants in time and now he’ll have to ride it out for the rest of the week in misery. Fuck.

“What’s wrong?” Aiden asks. “Jonny said your heat’s starting. What do you need?”

“Jonny,” Patrick breathes and then bites his tongue until it hurts to try to keep himself in check. Goddammit.

Aiden looks confused and worried. “You need Jonny?”

Patrick makes himself shake his head. “Need pills. Water. Call Stan and Q.” 

He hopes Aiden understands what he means. This isn’t the first time he’s seen Patrick go into heat, but he’s never seen it at this level before. Patrick’s never dealt with it at this level either, to be honest. This is new for both of them.

“What pills?”

“Suppressants,” Patrick says and tries to point. “Bathroom. Top drawer. Orange bottle.”

“I’ll get it,” Aiden says and runs to the bathroom. Patrick can hear him banging around in there for a minute, knocking over other bottles, a few dropping to the floor and rolling around. When he returns, he has the pills and a Smartwater. He sets them on the bed beside Patrick’s hand. “I’ll make the calls. Anything else?”

“No,” Patrick pants. “Out. Get out.”

He doesn’t mean to be rude, but if he can’t get out of these clothes and a few fingers up his ass in the next two minutes, he’s going to scream.

“I’m going.” Aiden hurries to the door. “Yell if you need anything.”

As soon as Patrick hears the door shut, he rips off his shirt and pants, happy he didn’t bother with boxers. He takes a few of his suppressants, doubtful that they’ll help now, and moves as quick as his trembling body will allow to reach for the box of toys under his bed. He pulls out the flesh colored knotted dildo and the purple knotted plug and doesn’t bother with the lube. He’ll produce enough slick to fill an entire tub. His sheets are already soaked through from where he was sitting, trying to climb into Jonny’s arms.

His brain flips over again as the thought of Jonny passes through and then he’s too busy shoving the knotted dildo up inside of him and thinking of Jonny’s hand in his hair as he comes to worry about anything else.

*

The week passes in a weird, slow haze of orgasms where Patrick thinks of nothing but Jonny knotting him and telling him how much he loves him, how he’s the best omega and they’re going to build a family together. When the lucid moments appear, they’re brief at first and only give him enough time to swallow as much water and food as he can manage before the heat subsumes him again for another few hours. By the time the burning in his skin has receded to an easy tingling again, it’s six days later and Patrick’s missed three games.

Two days after that, when Patrick’s finally good enough to make it to practice, he learns that Aiden’s been playing on Jonny’s wing and they’ve scored a combined seven goals and eight assists, winning every single game they’ve played on the same line together.


	2. Aiden

Aiden wakes up on a Wednesday morning in mid-December to a handful of texts from one of his ex-Philly teammates.

_**Hartzy:** Saw your game last night bud nice slap shot_  
_**Hartzy:** Really racking up the points playing with Toews_  
_**Hartzy:** Too bad you couldn’t do that for us last season #2 lol_

He drops his phone onto the bed beside him and rolls into his stomach, shoving his face into his pillow.

First of all, fuck Hartzy, that bearded fuck. 

Second of all, fuck him again.

It’s been about six months since the last time Aiden put on a Flyers jersey, and he hasn’t missed it once. That’s not to say there aren’t things about Philly or playing for the Flyers he does miss. The atmosphere in the WF Center on a game night, the way the fans were willing and ready to eat the competition alive before every game, hanging out with Carts and Richie on the plane rides, listening to Carbomb’s rants about the coaches after practices, hanging out on his off days with Claude and trying out every Philly cheesesteak joint in the downtown area, he’ll always hold onto those times fondly.

There were moments he’ll never forget and moments, like last summer, that he never ever, _ever_ wants to think about again.

But really, the best part about leaving Philadelphia was getting to come to Chicago.

*

It’s early afternoon when Jon pulls up in front of Patrick’s building and Aiden hops into his car. He only has a hoodie on instead of a jacket even though it’s cold as balls outside and there’s snow on the ground. But that’s Jon, ten degrees hotter than everyone else and ice in his veins.

The cold has never bothered Aiden as much as it does Patrick, but he still wouldn’t be caught dead in freezing weather without at least a few layers to protect him. Fuck that shit.

“What do you feel like?” Jon says, reaching out to mess with Aiden’s hair.

He just got his curls to lay right about five minutes ago and he’s not going to have Jon screw it up, so he throws up an arm to cut Jon off and pushes at him with a laugh.

“I don’t know, whatever.”

Jon smiles. “Trick question. I already decided on the way over here, we’re going for burgers.”

“Sounds good.”

Jon checks traffic, to make sure it’s clear, but doesn’t pull away from the curb yet. “You sure? Kaner would already be arguing with me about not having any input.”

Aiden snorts. “He just likes being fucking contrary.’

“Funny, that’s what he says about you.”

“Of course.”

“Is he coming down?” Jon asks. He looks hesitant.

“Oh, um, he said he had plans so it’s just us.”

Jon nods. “Gotcha. Has he…”

“Has he what?”

Jon looks out at traffic again and finally puts the car in drive, merging into traffic. They get past the bridge and stop at a four-way light before he says, “Is he - is Kaner okay?”

“Yeah?” Aiden says, confused. “Why wouldn’t he be?”

He’s never really understood the weirdness Jon has about his brother, but it’s always been there, for long as Aiden can remember. He assumed it was an alpha and omega thing. The hormones can often make shit heightened for them, or so he’s heard. They learned a bit about it in health class growing up, and he thinks it was mentioned in one of their old, ripped up text books from the 80’s that alphas and omegas will often be drawn to each other in their biological need to reproduce, but in Aiden’s experience, an omega is just as likely to go with a beta as an alpha. And he’s known plenty of alphas who date betas. Same dynamic pairings are more rare, but hell, he’s come across those too.

Everyone always builds up alphas and omegas to be the epitome of fairytale romance, but the world is mostly built of betas like Aiden, and it kind of sucks never being represented.

Anyway. It’s whatever.

He doesn’t get Jon and Patrick’s whole magnet act, constantly drawn to each other until they flip and repel, the cycle forever repeating. It’s probably just the hormones.

“I don’t know.” Jon shrugs, his eyes trained ahead of him on the road. “He’s been pretty quiet since he came back from his heat week.” He grips the steering wheel harder. “I wanted to make sure, you know, as his captain, that he’s alright. That everything went well?”

“‘As his captain,’” Aiden laughs, doing quotation marks with his fingers. “‘That everything went well.’” He rolls his eyes. “Dude. He’s fine. You’re being extra weird.”

Jon frowns. “I’m not.”

He is, but Aiden never expected him to admit it. It’s not Jon’s style.

“He spent all week in his room alone and when he came out, he was kind of a bitch for the next few days. That’s it.”

They drive for a few minutes in silence, Jon’s face contorting, jaw flexing as the wrinkles in his brow deepen.

“Don’t call him that,” he says finally, like he’s clenching his teeth.

Is he...is he mad? The fuck?

“What?” Aiden asks. “Bitch? Why?” 

Jon's eyes flick to Aiden and his expression eases a fraction, but he’s still ten times too serious for some offhand remark Aiden made that isn’t even a big deal. It’s not like he hasn’t teased his own twin a million times. It isn’t like Jon hasn’t been around for at least half of those times. The fact he’s being pissy right now is a little shocking and startling.

“Because every alpha that’s ever felt like they had something to prove used it to put him down. Because, I don’t know, he’s your omega brother and you know that word is loaded? Because it makes him feel shitty, Aiden,” Jon says, deadly serious.

There isn’t any room for argument, clearly. Aiden inhales slowly and exhales, tries to not let Jon’s alpha voice make him feel like he’s being scolded, even if it still does. He doesn’t like how Jon’s influence can sometimes work on him, even if he knows it’s a fraction of what omegas feel, and that Jon has a stronger voice than most other alphas. He doesn’t want Jon to be disappointed in him or for his best friend to be mad at him either. It’s a strange and sometimes conflicting set of emotions, to want to fall in line and follow orders while still needing to be his own person. 

He’s not sure he’ll ever quite get the hang of it.

“Okay,” Aiden says softly.

He hadn’t thought about how it could come off to Patrick in that context, but, yeah.

Not great.

*

They’re in Nashville at the start of a four day away trip when Sharpy walks through the door and eyes Aiden suspiciously. One of the many reasons Aiden’s enjoyed being paired with Sharpy for a roommate is that no one was pushed out to make room for him. Adam Burish was traded to Dallas over the summer, much like Aiden was traded to Chicago, that left a spot open and waiting. And while Aiden can never live up to the prankster reputation Burish cultivated for himself when he was with the Hawks, Aiden also doesn’t feel overshadowed by his absence.

Plus, Sharpy’s always treated Patrick well, and Aiden too by extension, like he’s just another little brother to support and rag on. Aiden really likes the guy, even if sometimes Sharpy has to stare for an extra minute to figure out if he’s talking to Aiden or his twin.

That might be partly Patrick’s fault for coming to their room a month ago, wearing similar clothing to Aiden, and pretending to be Aiden in front of Sharpy, while Aiden was in the bathroom taking a piss. It wasn’t very often that Patrick got one up on Sharpy, Aiden had gathered from his short time with the Hawks, so it was worth its weight in gold to take a golden opportunity when presented. Patrick had laughed until one single tear slid down his face as soon as Sharpy caught on.

The downside of it is that now whenever Sharpy isn't directly in front of the both of them and able to tell them apart by their slight size difference or if they're wearing hats to hide their haircuts, he feels the need to get up close to Aiden's or Patrick’s faces and stare until he finds whatever tiny defining feature that marks Patrick as Patrick and Aiden as Aiden.

Usually this would be the kind of thing Aiden would find annoying because it’d inevitably lead to being called Twin B or even worse, Twin #2, and he hates that shit, for a lot of reasons. But Sharpy is cool, and his squinting act is amusing, so Aiden lets it slide.

“‘Sup,” Aiden says to Sharpy, tilting his chin up in a quick nod. He’s been half watching the Mavs vs. Spurs game for the last twenty minutes while debating whether or not to text the girl, Ivy, he’d met at the party he’d thrown at Patrick’s place the night before his whole heat debacle.

She was...sweet. And beautiful, and didn’t know shit about hockey, but she’d talked to him all night about the movies and books she likes, how her brother wants to play football for Virginia Tech, how she’s never had much interest in dating alphas because they’re typically so bossy, and how she had the best conditioner recommendation for Aiden’s curly hair.

He hasn’t been able to stop thinking about her.

“Hey....AK?” Sharpy says, bending down and doing his little squinting thing as he looks over Aiden’s face.

Aiden rolls his eyes. “Yeah, it’s me,” he laughs. “It was only one time, man.”

Sharpy nods, seemingly satisfied, and steps back. He shoves his arm up in the air, his pointer finger extended upward. “I trust no one! Especially not your devious little ass. And this isn’t the first time.”

“When was the other time?”

Sharpy walks over to his bags and starts digging inside until he pulls out a fresh long sleeve pullover and a stick of deodorant. “When I was meeting up with you, Kaner, Tazer, and your family to have dinner in Philly in like 2009. You guys played that little switcheroo act on me while Tazer laughed his ass off. Why doesn't he ever mix you two up?”

Aiden shrugs and watches Shawn Marion make a three-pointer from half-court, tying the game. “I don’t know. He never has. You eat dinner?”

“Not yet. I was thinking about that Greek place down the road. You want to come?”

“Sure. Anyone else coming?”

At Aiden’s question, there’s a knock on the door and Sharpy looks up from his bag. “Sounds like he just arrived.”

He goes to answer the door and Aiden sees Patrick walk through in a pair of black sweatpants and a gray hoodie, which is basically what Aiden is wearing. It’s not that wild of an outfit to garner attention, but Sharpy squints at them again when he sees they’re both sporting their old Shattuck hoodies.

Aiden didn’t even do it on purpose. It’s just one of those twin things that occasionally just happens.

He looks to Patrick and they share another eye roll as Sharpy points two fingers at his eyes and back at them as if to say, ‘I’m watching you fuckers.’

“Yo,” Aiden calls when Sharpy’s in the bathroom and it’s just him, Patrick, and the ball game. “Is this Greek place any good we’re going to? I’m fucking starving.”

Patrick sits on the edge of Aiden’s bed, pulling out his phone to check it. “It’s not bad. The moussaka is probably the best dish.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Sharpy yells from behind the door. “Peekaboo is so fucking picky. All of their dishes are great.”

“I’m not that picky,” Patrick grumbles.

“You are a little bit,” Aiden says.

“Shut up.”

Aiden mimes zipping his lips closed, then immediately turns around and says, “Is J coming?”

If Aiden weren’t already looking directly at him, he might not have caught the way Patrick flinches at the mention of Jon, but he does; and Aiden's not sure what to do with it, or with the way Patrick schools his features so quickly it’s almost as if it didn’t happen at all.

“I didn’t ask,” Patrick says, nonchalantly.

“Why not?” Aiden asks.

Patrick’s lips press together in a thin line. “Because I don’t ask him what he’s doing every second like you do.”

“Why are you jumping up my ass, it was just a question?” Aiden smacks him on the arm with the back of his hand. In answer, he feels Patrick slap his hand away. Little asshole.

He wonders if it’s normal for omegas to act like this in the aftermath of an unexpected heat, if something happened during Patrick’s cycle or right before it that would cause him to be so grouchy, but then, it’s not like he’s been exactly pleasant since Aiden’s arrived either, so maybe he’s just annoyed with Aiden.

He still wonders how Jon knew to come get Aiden to help Patrick that morning. Was he just checking on Patrick and found him that way? Was he in Patrick’s room with him when it began? Aiden hadn’t known Jon even stayed over, nor has he asked why, but he’s curious.

And he wonders now if it’s contributing to the weirdness between Jon and Patrick. The extra weirdness. They’re already level eleven fucking weird.

Patrick hums. “If you want to know what he’s up to, go ask him yourself.”

“Fine, I will,” Aiden says.

“Fine,” Patrick echoes. He still hasn’t looked up from his phone.

Aiden turns to his own phone and texts Jon, not really expecting an answer right away, as he’s notoriously bad about answering the phone for anyone but his mom. So Aiden’s surprised when he receives a text after five minutes.

“He says out eating with Seabs and Duncs. He asked if I wanted to come. Huh.”

“What?” Patrick asks.

“Don’t you always eat with him?”

The edges of Patrick’s mouth turn down. “Not always.”

“But he didn’t even ask you?” he presses.

“Aiden, let it go,” Patrick bites out.

And Aiden wants to ask what’s wrong, he really does, because this feels like more than the regular amount of general disdain his brother has for him these days, or omega hormones, or hockey worries, or even some unexplainable annoyance with Jon. Underneath the sharp anger and flashes of irritation, Patrick seems...sad.

He opens his mouth to speak when Sharpy reappears, with his new shirt on and his hair perfectly in place, and claps his hands together. “Okay enough bickering, you two, let’s go eat.”

The Greek restaurant turns out to be pretty fucking delicious and after they’re done they meet up with some of the other guys and play pool in one of the hotel rec rooms for a few hours, sharing a few pitchers of beer. Right as Aiden’s feeling a little buzzed around the end of the night, he pulls out his phone again, says fuck it, and texts Ivy.

_**Aiden:** Hey!_

_**Ivy:** Who’s this?_

_**Aiden:** It’s Aiden. From the party the other week. How’ve you been?_

_**Ivy:** Ohhh, the hockey boy?_

_**Aiden:** That very one_

_**Ivy:** Hi hockey boy! I thought maybe you lost my number._

_**Aiden:** No. Trying to play it cool. Probably played it too cool, huh?_

It takes her a few minutes to reply and he’s mentally kicking his own ass at waiting too long to contact her and despairing of his own existence when his phone chimes. Oh thank god.

_**Ivy:** Maybe a little. But that’s okay, I’m willing to give you a second chance because you’re so cute._

He fist pumps the air, hears someone laugh at him in the background and doesn’t care.

_**Aiden:** Just cute? Not...devilishly handsome?_

_**Ivy:** LOLOL you’re an idiot. You want to have dinner with me sometime?_

_**Aiden:** I really do_

*

“You know I only played fucking sixteen minutes last night?” Aiden says to Jon during practice, the following week.

They’ve just finished passing drills and are now working on stickhandling in groups while half the team does shooting drills.

“That’s not bad,” Jon says. He keeps trying to shove his stick between Aiden’s and the puck, fucking up his rhythm.

“You played twenty!” Aiden states.

“Yeah, because we had a fuck ton of penalties to kill off. Not a good thing.”

“Still.”

Jon pauses and looks up from the ice at him, surveying. “What are you worried about?”

It’s almost impossible to be anything other than honest when Jon’s giving him that concerned look. He’d do it often enough when they were at UND together, even before he had a letter on his chest, that Aiden accepted it as a way of life. If Aiden had worries Jon would pester him until he talked, and that's how they quickly became confidantes for each other.

Years have passed since their college days, but it feels like little time has passed as they fall into this familiar pattern.

Aiden sighs, and picks up a puck with the blade of his stick, flips it twice before letting it drop. “I haven’t scored a goal in four games. Q seems mad.”

Jon gives him a dumb look. “No, that’s just Q. You’re fine.”

“Am I?”

“Yes.”

“Am I really?” Aiden asks, just to be contrary.

Jon reaches out like he wants to swipe at him and when Aiden skates backwards Jon smiles coyly.

“Come here.”

“Why?” Aiden asks and tries to slip away again when Jon gets an arm around his neck. “Dude,” Aiden barks out a laugh. “Fuck off.”

But he doesn’t, because of course he doesn’t, Jon never listens to anyone except exactly who he wants to, and they pull and push at each other for the next few minutes, knocking pucks every which way with their skates and losing their sticks and gloves in the process until finally one of the assistant coaches yells at them to chill out and get back to work.

“You got me in trouble!” Aiden says, shoving Jon off of him one last time as he giggles. He looks up to see where his left glove has disappeared to, and sees Patrick, across the rink, watching them with a scowl painted across his face. When he catches Aiden looking back at him, he quickly turns away.

Strange.

“I didn’t do anything,” Jon cackles. “I’m innocent.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Aiden waves him away and skates to the line for shooting drills.

After practice, as he’s walking out of Johnny’s Ice House with Jon beside him, he sees Patrick ahead of him and calls out, “Hey, Patty! Can I get a ride home?”

“Yeah, hurry up,” Patrick says back and keeps walking.

“Someone’s in a bad mood. Again,” Aiden says. He pulls at his bag strap as it starts to slip off his shoulder and catches Jon out of the corner of his eye watching Patrick get into his car. “I’m starting to think he just doesn’t want me here.”

“That’s not it,” Jon murmurs. His earlier easiness is suddenly gone.

“How do you know?” Aiden asks.

Jon glances at him and then away again, jaw tight. “He loves you. He wants you around. Change is just hard for him, you know that.”

“I guess,” Aiden says, but he’s not so sure.

*

The week of Christmas the whole family arrives for a visit and to watch a few Hawks games. Erica and Jessica are on break from college, Jackie's on break from high school, and they spend the first night telling Aiden and Patrick about everything they’ve missed since the last time they were both back in Buffalo. It’s been about ten months longer for Aiden than Patrick.

There’s a good amount of Christmas shopping, which is mostly shoe and clothes shopping for the girls, but they spend one afternoon in a car dealership buying a car for Erica’s upcoming early graduation.

Mom pesters Patrick and him about getting a full time cleaning service as the apartment is kind of a mess, but Patrick throws Aiden under the bus, claiming the majority of the mess is his, and that the weekly service is fine. It doesn’t stop Mom from spending several hours tidying the kitchen, the living room, and doing any laundry she can possibly get her hands on.

For dinner one night they go to Chicago Cut as it’s one of the few places where Dad likes pretty much everything on the menu, and it’s shaping up to be a fairly relaxing evening when the waiter arrives to take their orders.

“I’ll have the marinated skirt steak with onions,” Patrick says, smiling at the omega waitress.

“You should get a low fat protein,” Dad cuts in. “Like the yellow fin tuna.”

Patrick looks from the waitress to Dad, the tips of his ears going red with embarrassment. “I had fish for lunch, remember?”

Dad doesn’t look up from his menu. “Doesn’t hurt to have it twice? Right?”

“Right,” Patrick says, dully. “I’ll have the yellow fin.”

*

The following night after the Hawks lose six to four to the Canucks, a game in which Aiden potted two goals and had one assist, Jon potted one goal and one assist, and Patrick managed only three shots on goal, Dad decides to begin his classic lecture-in-the-car-after-a-loss routine the moment they pull away from the United Center.

Usually this would be the moment when Dad would begin pointing out all of the flaws in Aiden’s game, from his sloppy stickhandling to his clumsy board battles and weak net front presence. All of the ways he wasn’t keeping up with his stronger teammates or his omega twin, who could miraculously do everything Aiden could on the ice, only twice as well and without ever getting slammed into the glass.

Aiden’s lived so much of his life never quite measuring up to Patrick Kane: the hockey player, that it’s almost second nature at this point to assume anything negative being pointed out is automatically being directed at him. He knows this road well, has walked down it many times before. 

It takes him completely off guard, then, when Dad starts in on Patrick and not him.

“Your puck handling looked a little rusty tonight. Have you been practicing extra since you were out _that_ week?” Dad says.

They all know what week he means, but he doesn’t like to call it by name if he doesn’t have to, not in regards to Patrick, at least. And Aiden didn’t think it was that big of a deal, but he watches the way Patrick folds his arms around his middle and curls into himself now like he’s trying to occupy as little space as possible.

“The schedule has been kind of crazy, lots of traveling and stuff,” Patrick says, and he turns to look out the window.

Mom is sitting up front, with Dad driving, the girls in the back row, quiet, as Aiden and Patrick take up the two middle seats. Aiden turns his head and silently sticks out his tongue at Jackie to get her to smile. She does and sticks her tongue out in return, crossing her eyes as Erica watches Patrick in concern. Jess has her earphones on, oblivious to the tension settling thickly throughout the rest of the car. At least one of them can escape it.

Dad clears his throat. “That doesn’t answer my question.”

“Yeah, of course I have,” Patrick says, softly.

“Then why did you look sluggish during the game last night?” Dad asks.

“I didn’t sleep well.”

Aiden watches Patrick’s arms come loose at his sides, his hands coming together as he begins pulling at his fingers, cracking his knuckles. It’s been a while since Aiden’s seen him do this, and he remembers vaguely how Jon used to pull Patrick into his side whenever he caught Patrick doing this during their Shattuck days.

The only nervous tic Aiden has ever consistently had was his dumb need to pull on his left ear. Mom tells him it came from when he was a toddler because he had so many ear infections, and after a while he just got used to tugging on it. He hasn’t done it in years, as far as he can recall, definitely not as often as Patrick fidgets with his hands.

“What time did you go to bed?” Dad says.

Patrick pauses. “Uh, after eleven I think.”

They both know it was the wrong thing to say the second their Dad looks over his shoulder at Patrick with a displeased and tight expression.

“You should be in bed by ten the night before a game. Every time,” he states. He shakes his head in disgust. “No wonder you were tired. You need to watch your schedule better, son. It’s part of your responsibility to your team and to yourself. Don’t you want to be the best player you can be?”

“Yes,” Patrick says, softer still.

“Then part of that is sticking to a solid routine. We’ve talked about this.”

“I know,” he whispers.

When they’re dropped off at the apartment before everyone else heads back to the hotel to sleep, Patrick goes to his room and closes the door. He doesn’t come out for the rest of the night.

*

On Christmas Day the family comes over to open presents, Erica crying about her new car, Jess and Jackie screaming about their pile of new electronics from MacBooks to iPhones and Prada gift certificates. Aiden and Patrick went in on a membership to one of the best country clubs with one of the best golf courses for Dad, and an entire new set of kitchen appliances for Mom, plus a two week trip to a spa and a few broadway shows in New York City, because even she needs a break from their Dad sometimes.

For Patrick, Aiden bought him a pair of heated winter gloves, a personalized and autographed Dominik Hašek jersey, and a Gucci watch he’d been eyeing while they were out shopping with the girls. In return Patrick gifts Aiden with the original Star Trek series on DVD as well as Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine (even though that’s Aiden’s least favorite), including the Chris Pine reboot movie as well as a signed tricorder by Nimoy and a signed communicator by Shatner. Aiden would’ve been more than happy with all of that, but then Patrick slides him an envelope with a vacation in July to go cave swimming in Tulum, Mexico.

“For you and a guest,” he says, folding his fingers together tightly. “Whoever you want to take.”

“Thanks, Patty,” Aiden says, touched by his brother’s thoughtfulness. He’d mentioned Tulum, like, two years ago offhandedly and had put it on the backburner as something he could do later.

The fact that Patrick was listening and remembered...Aiden isn’t sure what to do with that. He tucks the information in his pocket along with the envelope and tells himself he’ll visit it again, also later.

For a late lunch, early dinner, Mom cooks a turkey and most of the usual festive side dishes as they all eat until they’re too full to do much more than plop themselves in front of Patrick’s TV and watch A Christmas Story on repeat.

The thought that most of Aiden’s belongings are still languishing in a storage locker and waiting for him to find a place of his own briefly enters his mind, but then Mom asks him to help her fill the dishwasher with dirty dishes. He grumbles and groans a bit, just to be dramatic, and also because he hates touching wet food, but it’s technically his turn since he missed the Fourth of July, so he forces himself up off of the couch and goes to fulfill his duty.

They work in companionable silence for a while as Mom rinses the plates and utensils, handing them to Aiden to place appropriately on either the top (rarely the top) or bottom shelf.

“How’s it feel being away from Philly?” Mom asks, as she begins working on the remaining pots and pans.

“It’s good,” Aiden says and finds himself smiling. “It’s really good actually. Everyone treats me better in Chicago. I thought maybe there’d be more competition with Patty here. But it’s like they don’t expect me to be him, and, I don’t know, it’s less pressure.”

He dries the pans and leaves them in the sink to put away later, as Mom wipes down the counters of any remaining bits of crumbs and small splatters of water. As they’re walking back into the living room, she turns to him and rubs gently at his back.

“I’m glad you’re settling in here well. Are you happy? You look less stressed.”

“Yeah, I think so.” Aiden exhales. “I feel better here. And I’m producing more for the team. It’s been fun playing with Jon.” At the mention of Jon, his brother glances up. “I get why Patty likes it so much. He’s easy to play with, strong on the puck, a great passer, and protects his linemates.”

Patrick opens his mouth like he’s about to respond, but Dad cuts in.

“If your brother hadn’t missed a week of games, maybe he’d still be on that line instead of being demoted to the second.” He’s turned the TV to the Cowboys vs. Cardinals game and hasn’t moved from his spot in the recliner since after they finished eating. He doesn’t look at Aiden or Patrick as he says this and so he misses the way Patrick’s eyes fall momentarily closed.

“I wasn’t demoted,” he says.

“What do you call getting moved down a line, then?” Dad asks.

Patrick’s mouth twists. “Q said it was for balance.”

“And why would he say that?”

Patrick looks on, confused.

Mom walks fully into the living room and takes a seat beside Dad, pats at his knee gently. “Honey, please. It’s Christmas. Let’s not get into this stuff right now.”

For one quick second Aiden thinks Dad's going to drop it and they can all enjoy the rest of the night in peace, but then he watches as his father shakes his head and brushes her off.

“It’s fine, Donna. We’re just talking.” Dad turns his attention back on Patrick, and Aiden can’t see his expression from where he’s standing, but at this angle he can tell the look Patrick’s receiving is cold, he’s seen it enough himself to know by heart. “He said it because you probably weren’t pulling your weight.”

“But I...I had as many points as Jonny, before I was moved,” Patrick says. He’s cracking his knuckles one handed, methodically pushing at his pinky, ringer finger, middle finger, and index finger with his thumb. He goes through each one and then starts over again.

“And then you missed a week of games,” Dad says, his tone shifting into something like annoyance.

“It wasn’t my fault? I can’t control when my heats come on, Dad.”

Pinky. Ring. Middle. Index.

“Were you around alphas?”

Pinky. Ring. Middle. Index.

“Yes,” Patrick says, starting on his left hand. Pinky, ring, middle, index. “I can’t avoid being around alphas. I don’t know what you expect me to do?”

He’s foregone cracking knuckles and is now tugging at them, twisting until the skin turns white.

Pinky. Ring. Middle. Index.

Dad picks up the remote beside him, mutes the TV, and throws it on the coffee table with a loud thunk where it startles Jess enough she pauses her music and pulls one earbud out. Erica and Jackie are in the guest room watching a movie, but everyone else is staring at Dad in anxious silence.

Aiden watches him sit forward and stare directly at Patrick, who’s sitting so still he almost looks frozen in place.

“I expect you to pay attention to your cycles and who you’re spending time with and when. Maybe next time you can avoid this kind of thing happening and you won’t end up behind your brother on the stats sheet,” Dad says pointedly. He stops and waits until Patrick meets his eyes before he continues. “Is that where you want to be? Just another omega hockey player that can’t keep up with the alphas and betas in this league? Because I assure you that’s what they’ll say the moment you aren’t at the top anymore. You cannot let yourself make another misstep.”

Patrick nods miserably, the skin around his pinky finger so red now from Patrick’s rubbing it’s almost as if he was trying to claw it off.

Maybe it’s the sight of his brother’s poor hands, raw and faintly trembling, that sets Aiden off the most, he’s not sure. He just knows he needs his dad to stop and he needs him to stop right now.

“Jesus Christ, Dad,” Aiden blurts out. “Give him a fucking break!”

Dad spins around in his seat, alarmed by the interruption. “Hey, don’t talk to me like that.”

Aiden throws his arm out, gesturing to Patrick. “Don’t talk to _him_ like that! He’s not a kid. He knows what’s at stake here. We both do. And even if we didn’t you never let us fucking forget it.”

“Aiden, please,” Mom says, despondently.

“Can’t we have one holiday without this shit?” Aiden asks Dad. He’s not sure what exactly his face is doing, but it’s not good, and all of his skin feels stretched taut, his eyes wild. “God.”

“Let’s sit down and watch a movie, okay?” Mom tries.

She’s trying for the wrong person.

Dad’s scowling, staring at the muted television, Jess’s eyes ping-ponging between everyone, while Patrick looks out the window out at the white Chicago cityscape.

It feels too stifling to sit here and play make-believe that everything is fine. Aiden can’t force himself to pretend.

“No thanks. I’m good,” he says and goes for the front door, grabs his coat and scarf off of the wall hook and walks out.

There’s not really anywhere to go on Christmas day with snow covering the sidewalks and streets, but Aiden walks down to the lobby of Patrick’s building anyway and sits alone on an empty couch for a while, trying to cool down, until Marshall, one of the regular doormen walks up and asks him if he’s okay.

They chat for a while and Aiden asks after his family, listens as Marshall talks about his upcoming seventeenth wedding anniversary with his husband and how their daughter is in town with her boyfriend and all four of them are going to the late showing of A Christmas Carol at the Goodman Theater tomorrow when he has the day off. Eventually some people come by asking questions and Aiden slips away to walk outside.

It’s not bitterly cold like one would expect with snow coming down, but Aiden’s acclimated to Philly winters which are altogether harsher than Chicago’s. He walks around leaving footprints as he goes and finally pulls out his phone.

He wanted to wait until later to call, but he’s feeling shitty enough that he knows hearing her voice will selfishly make him feel better.

She answers on the third ring.

“Hi, hockey boy,” Ivy says, and she sounds like she’s smiling.

Aiden smiles too. “Hi, pretty girl.”

They’ve only been out together the one time since they last texted. Aiden had taken her to Alinea, not really knowing what to expect, only having heard it was one of the best fine dining restaurants in Chicago. After four hours of being served and watching food be made into art, and trying delicacies like cherry tomatoes created to be strawberries, Ivy had declared the dinner an overwhelming success. 

“Do I even want to know how much that cost?” she’d asked as they were standing in front of her building at the end of the night.

“Doesn’t matter,” Aiden had said. “Worth it.”

She’d kissed him and said she hoped he’d call her again before walking inside.

They’d texted almost every day since.

“Merry Christmas! You having a good day?” she asks.

Aiden thinks about lying, but he’s never really been good at it. And the thing is...he doesn’t want to. He wants her to know him. “Not really.”

In the background he can hear people talking and laughing, the sounds of a happy family celebrating with one another. Ivy had told him during dinner that her mother and father are divorced and that she’s living in the same building with her mom and younger brother, to be close to them, as she finishes school. She doesn’t see her father much.

“No?” she asks, and the voices grow quieter, like she walked out of the room. “What’s wrong?”

Aiden blows out a long breath and leans against the side of the building. “Just my dad, being a dick as usual. “

Ivy hums. “Isn’t that what they always do, without fail, every holiday? I think they have a club dad meeting and plan it or something.”

Aiden laughs. It’s stupid how much he wants to see her, just be near her. He doesn’t even know her that well. He’s losing it. “What did your dad do?”

“Oh, you know, just told me getting a masters in creative writing was a waste of time and that he’s not going to pay my bills when I can’t get a job after graduation. And I was like, ‘Dad, you don’t pay my bills now.’ And then he got pissy with me and told me not to ask for money.”

“I’ll pay your bills,” Aiden says, without hesitation.

He’s definitely fucking losing it.

“What?!” Ivy gasps and immediately begins coughing, like just the suggestion surprised her so much she started choking on air. “Boy, you’re crazy.”

“If you need help, I’ll pay them,” he says.

“Aiden, stop,” she laughs. She probably thinks he’s joking, but he absolutely means it.

“I’m serious!” he states. “Not to brag, but I have a shit ton of money. And I’m doing a brand deal with my brother in January for Bauer so I’m about to get a shit ton more. If you need help I want to help you.”

There’s a series of stuttered words, like she’s trying to form a thought and then discards it and begins again. Finally she settles on, “That’s. That’s very sweet. But I’m okay.”

“Are you sure?” he asks and finds himself smiling again. He loves surprising her and he doesn’t know why, maybe he just really likes her and that makes any small reaction he can get feel like he found a little nugget of gold.

“Yes. I promise,” she says, emphatically. “I just need my dad to understand that too. But hey, guess what?”

“What?”

“I’m coming to one of your games next week.”

Aiden feels his cheeks go hot, his smile starting to stretch so far across his face it’s beginning to ache.

“Oh, yeah? Which one?” he asks.

“Um,” Ivy says. “The San Francisco Sharks, I think?”

“San Jose,” he laughs. “But we can relocate them if you want. I’ll call their GM.” He shouldn’t press with everything still so new between them, but shit, he already has and it’s paid off. What’s a little more? “You should wait for me afterwards in the family room,” he says.

“Wait for what?”

“After the game. So I can see you and take you home.”

“My own hockey boy chauffeur,” she says, sounding delighted. “I could get used to this.”

They talk for another ten minutes until her older brother, James, comes and gets her so they can go to evening Christmas mass. Aiden’s toes are beginning to tingle as he walks around the building to the front entrance and finds Patrick standing by the door, all bundled up in his heavy coat, gloves, beanie, and scarf. He steps outside when he sees Aiden.

“Hey,” Patrick says. “You’ve been out here a while.”

He considers telling Patrick about Ivy, but doesn’t. They stopped sharing those kinds of details with each other years ago.

“Needed to get some fresh air,” Aiden says, pressing his lips together.

He watches Patrick step forward and halt. “I just wanted to...I just,” he says and then Aiden has two arms wrapped around his shoulders, Patrick pulling him in until he can envelope Aiden as much as possible. It takes a long moment for Aiden's brain to catch up to what’s happening and then he’s hugging his twin back, holding him close.

“Thank you,” Patrick murmurs, his voice cracking. “For standing up for me.”

Aiden squeezes him once more and lets him go. They look at each other awkwardly until Aiden kicks some snow at Patrick’s thousand dollar sneakers and hears him squawk in protest. Patrick kicks a bigger pile back, grinning minutely.

“Sometimes Dad needs to shut the hell up.” 

“Yeah.”

“You want to go back inside?” Aiden asks.

“Not really. Do you?” 

“Fuck no,” Aiden says and then they both chuckle, their identical laughter a strange but comforting echo.

“You think Erica would kill us if we just bailed and went over to Jonny’s?” Patrick says and then blinks, the smile suddenly falling off of his face.

Aiden isn’t sure what that’s about, but it’s becoming a regular occurrence where Jon’s involved. He’ll have to ask about it soon, but not today. Only one problem at a time. “Oh absolutely.”

Patrick sighs. “Fine. Let’s go.”

They spend the rest of the night watching old Christmas claymation movies and not discussing anything hockey related. Dad doesn’t talk much, but frankly, that’s more of a blessing than a curse.

*

In January, the Hawks fly out the night before an afternoon game in Philly. Jon decides the team needs to eat together and delegates the job of finding the best restaurant to Aiden. He takes them to Talula’s Garden, which doesn’t have any Philly cheesesteak sandwiches on the menu, a fact that disappoints at least half the team and garners Aiden a few complaints. But Jon enjoys all of the healthy, gluten free options, and keeps discussing how much he wishes Chicago had more places like this around the Loop.

He goes on long enough Seabs won’t stop rolling his eyes and eventually Patrick throws a balled-up napkin at his face to get him to shut up. Jon throws it back, snorting loudly when it ricochets off of Patrick’s forehead and lands in Sharpy’s glass of water.

After Jon pays the bill, most of the guys scatter off, back to the hotel, or to the bar for a drink, leaving Aiden, Patrick, Jon, Seabs, and the rest of the core guys to sit around and chat. Sharpy is in the middle of telling a story about his dog, Shooter, trying to eat so many of Abby’s panties that he’s started shitting out lace covered turds, when out of the corner of his eye Aiden sees Pronger and O’Donnell from across the restaurant. He can sense their bloated alpha arrogance from a football field away.

Aiden imagines sinking under the table or just diving to the floor to avoid them, but he can barely take a breath before he sees them spot him.

They wave and walk over, smacking him on the shoulders, once, then twice just that little bit harder.

“Hey, boys!” Pronger says. “How’s it goin’?”

“It’s good,” Jon says, politely. “Out for dinner?”

“Of course,” Pronger nods. “We won’t keep you. Just wanted to come over and say long time, no see, Number Two.”

Aiden watches Patrick’s brow furrow, confused.

There’s not a single thing Aiden misses about that particular nickname and it’s fucking lame that the two of them felt the need come over here and shove it in his face just because they still hold him personally responsible for last season’s Cup loss. Like Aiden lost an entire fucking Stanley Cup all on his own.

What a joke.

“Don’t let Kaner show you up again tomorrow, bud.” O’Donnell smirks. “That’d just be embarrassing.”

“No worries,” Aiden says, flashing them a bright smile. “I’m sure you’ll lose without my help.”

Jon barks out a laugh, throwing his arm around Aiden’s shoulders. “See you boys tomorrow, bright and early.”

Pronger and O’Donnell give matching, pissed off nods, but don’t push the issue, shuffling back to wherever their table is located.

“Fuck those guys,” Jon says later as they’re walking out for the night, just loud enough Aiden’s almost sure Pronger and O’Donnell overheard him.

Patrick’s quiet concern follows Aiden to the game the next day, from opening puck drop until near the end of the second period when he, Aiden, and Jon are all out together in the first power player unit, about to take the Flyers for a five on three and tie things up.

Jon wins the faceoff, gets the puck to Patrick, who immediately is swarmed by one of the Flyers defensemen and their top penalty killing forward, Carts. Patrick passes to Aiden, who looks for Duncs, hanging out near the blue line with no one around him. Aiden tries to shoot the puck in his direction, but fumbles the pass and it gets caught in front of the Hawks net, where Jon and Seabs have to dig it out and redirect it towards the boards.

Aiden’s shit at board battles, always has been, but he knows he’s the one who fucked up here, and if he doesn’t want this entire last minute of power play to go to waste, he’s going to have to help get the puck back, instead of standing around twiddling his thumbs like a goddamn fool. He skates up to where Pronger and Duncs are trying to pluck it and adds his stick in, hoping to get it free from all of the skate and stick blades.

“Can’t even hold onto the puck long enough to make a goal, Number Two,” Pronger spits out. “Fucking pathetic.”

“Guess I’ll go weep in a corner with my eighteen goals while your one, singular goal keeps you warm at night,” Aiden says and feels Pronger’s shoulder jerk back and knock into his jaw.

Aiden falls backward, the wind getting knocked out of him, and a swarm of players from both teams moving around him, pushing and shoving happening within the scrum. 

“You okay? Patrick says, skating up to him and helping him up.

Off to the side, Jon’s got Pronger against the glass and two linesmen between them, pulling them apart.

“Aww, Number One checking up on Number Two, that’s adorable,” O’Donnell says snidely, standing to the side of the net.

“Go fuck yourself,” Patrick snaps, looking absolutely vicious. 

Aiden is so shocked by his outburst he can only smile back at O’Donnell pleasantly and throw him a quick bird before following Patrick back to the bench.

By the time they’re seated again and the second power play unit is out on the ice, Patrick’s calm demeanor is back in place, like the entire incident never even occurred.

*

The All Star break comes and goes, as does a nice bye week off in Miami golfing with Jon. Aiden had tried to convince Ivy to take a week off and come with him, but she’d just laughed, kissed him sweetly, and reminded him that regular people couldn’t take a random week off of classes and work at the beginning of February. He’s going to try that argument on her again in June, or maybe July, and see what she has to say then. Hopefully nothing but yes. Lots of yeses in all different tones and moans.

Aiden isn’t sure how the fuck Jon went on the same vacation as him and came back as tan as a golden god while Aiden looks like he spent thirty seconds in a toaster, but it’s incredibly unfair.

“How was Cancun?” Aiden asks Patrick as they’re driving to the United Center for their seven o’clock game against the Red Wings.

“Relaxing. I mostly slept and golfed with Sharpy when Abby wasn’t dragging us around sightseeing,” Patrick says. He bites at his lip, chewing at it for a minute. “Did you and Jon have fun in Miami?”

“Yeah, it was alright,” Aiden shrugs. “We mostly golfed too. Did some clubbing, but I wasn’t really interested in hooking up with anyone and Jon didn’t seem to be either, so we mostly hung out around the resort.”

“Right,” Patrick coughs. “Well. Um. Cool.”

“Cool?” Aiden says, right eyebrow rising. His brother is so intensely bizarre sometimes.

Patrick rolls his shoulders. “I mean nice! Glad you had a good time.”

They don’t talk the rest of the drive to the arena and Patrick seems distant and in his head, even more than usual, by the time the game starts. He misses a few passes in the first and shoots the puck entirely over the net and up into the netting above the glass in the second. Aiden wouldn’t ever say it was Patrick’s fault for what happened in the third, but he knows if Patrick had been more alert the whole situation probably could have been avoided.

The Hawks are up two with four minutes and sixteen seconds remaining on the clock when the puck slides along the boards in the offensive zone, stopping less than ten feet from Patrick. He’s closest so naturally he skates up to the puck to retrieve it, turning at an angle and leaving his back vulnerable to a six-foot, two hundred pound Henrik Zetterberg as he comes barreling at Patrick and slams him head first into the boards.

Patrick’s helmet cracks against the glass and he crumples to the ice, Zetterberg scooping up the puck and jetting away. Or, well, he tries to, but he only makes it about fifteen feet before Jon comes at him like a goddamn freight train, smashing into him, getting a fistful of jersey and then slamming Zetterberg face first into the ice. Aiden watches in slow motion horror as Jon gets on top of him and begins punching at his face, knocking his helmet off, and continuing to go at him until there’s blood across Zetterberg’s mouth. Every single ref has to use all of their strength to drag Jon off of him.

Once they get Jon away, and begin pulling him toward the bench, Aiden sees his eyes immediately dart to Patrick, who’s now standing in the corner where he fell. They look at each other like they’re frightened and Aiden is struck by the utter intensity of it.

They aren’t worried about what Jon’s just done in the name of a barely illegal hit. They’re panicked as if they’re terrified of losing one another.

Aiden doesn’t know what to think, can’t process it. He finishes out the third without Jon, who gets ejected with a game misconduct, the Hawks still managing to hold onto the lead.

It feels weird to win without Jon there to fistbump at the end of the game, to have him gone from the locker room as Q gives his speech for the night, or as Aiden talks to the press. 

Almost everyone has cleared out while he waits around for Patrick to finish dressing to drive them home, when Aiden sees Jon and Patrick at the end of a darkened hallway, talking. The light from an open door is barely illuminating them and they almost appear as silhouettes from this far away. Aiden can’t hear what they’re saying, but he can see Jon walk up and close the distance between them. He can see Jon reach out and tenderly cup his hand around Patrick’s cheek like he’s precious. Patrick can’t look at him, not for more than a few seconds, his eyes flicking up to Jon’s and then away. Up and away, up and away.

Eventually Patrick steps back and Jon reaches out for Patrick’s hand, except no, that’s not right, he goes for his wrist instead, folding his fingers around it. Patrick lets him, staring down at where they’re connected, and, for once, without any fidgeting, stands completely still.

The longer Aiden watches them, the more uncomfortable he becomes, and it’s not because they’re touching. He’s seen them touch a thousand times throughout the years, sides pressed together, arms around each other’s shoulders, full body hugs, and heads rested against shoulders. This is different.

This isn’t friendship. 

It’s love.

*

Aiden can’t stop thinking about it. Jon and Patrick. Of course it’s them. It’s so fucking obvious now that he sees it, like a veil has been pulled from his eyes, like he’s cleaned the dirt from his windshield. Everything is strikingly clear. He doesn’t know how far back it goes, but he can make a few educated guesses based on their weirdness level at any given time, and memories that don't quite fit together. He was shoving puzzle pieces into the wrong spots, trying to fit rounds pegs into square holes, or some other shitty metaphor.

What it boils down to is Aiden feeling epically stupid and betrayed.

His own brother and his best friend, and they couldn’t what? Couldn’t find time in the last year, or two, or five to tell him about this? To explain what was going on? To confide in him even a little?

Long distance fucking blows, Aiden understands that, and he never expected for either of them keep him updated on the small day to day things like who they were hooking up with, what new TV shows they were watching, or what new prank Sharpy was pulling. He didn’t even expect them to keep him notified about the once in a while things like who they were dating, what vacations they were taking, or if one of them got a hat trick. But this isn’t an infrequent occurrence that might pop up again. This is a once in a lifetime situation that will change all of their lives and Aiden was conveniently left out of the loop over and over.

Out of sight, out of mind, as they say. And, shit, if Aiden’s experiences are anything to go by, it must be true.

*

In early March the Hawks have a back to back on a Thursday in St. Louis and a Friday in Chicago where they play the Blues both times and pick up three points with a regulation win and an overtime loss. They’re sitting in the first wild card spot, safe, but not as safe as they could be, and the stress is beginning to itch at all of Aiden’s nerves.

There’s a gnawing helplessness seeping in at all corners from his unsettled shit with Patrick, to his anger at Jon, his unnamed need for Ivy, and his frustration with hockey. He can’t escape it because it’s everywhere, and it’s putting him on edge. 

Three games. It’s only been three games since he hasn’t gotten a point. Not a big deal, not that deep of a hole, really, and even the elite of the elite go through dry spells or occasionally become snakebit. He knows that. But the harder he pushes to make a goal happen, the more difficult it becomes to get near the net, to get free of opposing defensemen, to hold onto the puck at all.

The week leading up to Seabs’ engagement party, Aiden only manages a measly four assists and isn’t able to see Ivy once, as she’s in the thick of writing her masters thesis, and has to finish her current chapter before the mid-month deadline. After the back to back games against the Blues, the Hawks have a Saturday and Sunday off for the first time in months and Ivy’s finally free for the evening so he invites her to come with him to Seabs’ party, hoping they can hang out for a while and then dip, maybe go back to her place and spend the rest of the night in bed.

It’s the first time he’s genuinely been in a good mood in almost two weeks until he walks into Seabs’ house and sees Jon and Patrick standing in a corner together and talking. Nothing particularly interesting is happening, they aren’t even alone, Sharpy and Abby right next to them in a little group of four, all clumped together. 

It’s not a big deal.

Aiden should just let it the fuck go. It’s not like they owe him their secrets or anything, he knows that. But he thought he mattered enough to them to have earned the truth, and seeing them together now just reminds him he hasn’t, he didn’t.

Fuck ‘em.

“You want a drink?” he asks Ivy.

She smiles up at him sweetly, one of her fingers twirled around a few of her braids. She’s been tugging on them anxiously since they walked in.

“Yes, please. Just, um, anything but beer?”

“Let’s go check it out,” Aiden says, wrapping a loose arm around her waist and tugging her along with him into the dining room.

She beams up at him, looking relieved, like maybe she thought he was going to leave her alone to fend for herself. Not a chance.

The spread in the dining room is luxurious, white, lavender, and silver decorations everywhere, and absolutely set up by some hired company. There’s a flower chandelier hanging over a huge table filled with champagne, tiny sandwiches, little dessert cakes with fruit on top, and little plastic plates that look like real glass. Clearly all approved under Dayna’s management.

While Aiden’s pouring Ivy a cup of alcoholic fruit punch from a large, fancy bowl, he introduces Ivy to Dayna and Kelly Rae, and eats a few white chocolate macarons, because fuck his diet tonight. After that everyone gathers in the main room to watch a few sappy videos and listen to a few more even sappier speeches while Seabs talks about how he never imagined himself marrying another alpha, and it’s the best thing that’s going to ever happen to him.

“Including the Cup?” a voice yells from the back, and laughs break out through the crowd.

Seabs looks right at Dayna and smiles. “Okay, maybe second best.”

When she makes a face, he throws his head back and cracks up, moving to her quickly and kissing her forehead. “Not even a chance, babe. It’s been you since day one. Without a doubt.”

After Duncs and Jon take their turns talking, people break up into groups, most of the women staying in the main room to open gifts and discuss registry stuff, whatever that means. Some of the boys head outside to the lit up deck and others downstairs where Aiden knows Seabs keeps his bar, pool table, and home theater. He’s debating where to take Ivy when she tugs gently on his arm.

“We should go say hi to your brother,” she says.

“Why?”

Ivy gives him an unimpressed look. “Because he’s standing over there alone?” She studies his face for a second before lacing their fingers together. “What’s wrong?”

Aiden can think of five things off the top of his head, and at least three of them involve his brother, but he doesn’t want to get into any of that crap with her right now, not when they’re supposed to be having a nice night together. “Nothing,” he says easily and makes himself smile, nudging her temple with the tip of his nose. “I’m good.”

“You seem grouchy.”

“I’m sorry,” he says and tries to mentally shake himself out of his funk. “Yeah, let’s go over there.”

She pulls him over to where Patrick’s standing against a wall, picking the label off of his beer bottle and rolling the shredded paper into a ball with his fingers. He seems distracted, gaze far off and unfocused, when Aiden and Ivy step up to him and catch his attention.

He blinks at them for a few seconds, like he doesn’t know what to say.

“Patty, hey,” Aiden says, he guides Ivy closer to his side, so she’s in front of Patrick. “Wanted to introduce you to Ivy. I think you guys crossed paths at the apartment back in November, but you didn’t officially get to meet, so.”

Ivy flashes her brightest, friendliest grin and sticks her hand out, tentatively. “Hi, Patrick, it’s nice to meet you.”

Patrick looks down at her hand, up to her face, then down at her hand again, before finally taking it and shaking it gently. “Nice to meet you too.” All three of them stand there quietly for a beat until Patrick speaks up again. “Are you from Chicago?”

“Schaumburg, actually, but I go to school in the city.”

“Oh cool,” Patrick says, like his media training has kicked in and he remembers how to talk again. “Where?”

Ivy tells Patrick about school and her masters program, her brothers, Trey and James, her cat, Cheddar, and her first game at the United Center. She asks Patrick about how long he and Aiden have played hockey, then tells him how amazing she thinks everything he’s done for hockey as an omega is and that she really admires him.

Patrick does his awkward fidgeting thing, thanking her, and looking relieved when Kelly Rae comes over to steal Ivy away for something registry related.

“So how long have you guys been friends?” Patrick asks when it’s just them.

“Friends,” Aiden says. That’s a weird way to say girlfriend, but okay. “Why does it matter?”

Patrick bites at his bottom lip. “I was just curious.”

Aiden doesn’t buy it, but he doesn’t want to bother with it now. “Mm.”

He’s thinking about getting a few beers and checking out what’s happening in the basement, maybe get a little buzzed before he grabs Ivy and escapes back to her place, more specifically to her bed. There are at least ten things he wants to do to her tonight, and one of them includes fucking her until she’s the only thing taking up space in his head.

“What about Jonny?” Patrick asks, quietly.

Aiden’s eyes flick to Patrick, who looks suddenly far away and cautious. It doesn’t make sense and flips Aiden from amicable into irritated almost immediately.

He lets out a quick breath. “What about him? If you’re looking for him, I think he went outside with Duncs.”

“I wasn’t,” Patrick says, brow knitting. “Wasn’t looking for him.”

He could stand here and continue this awkward conversation, but honestly, he doesn’t want to. “Sure,” Aiden says, and walks off.

There’s laughter coming from the basement and he meanders his way down there, another spread of drinks and less fancy snack foods set up on a table beside a set of couches in front of an 80 inch flat screen. Currently Bolly, Skills, and Stalzy are congregated together and playing Guitar Hero, Stalzy killing it as he plays Sabotage on the highest difficulty level.

Aiden joins in and they play a few rounds, making bets and taking shots the longer they go until Aiden realizes he’s more than just a little buzzed. He hands off the controller to Smitty as Bolly starts bitching about the rest of the schedule for the season. And it’s like a beacon, calling Jon forth, because suddenly he appears to add his two cents and tell everyone how annoyed he is by how the majority of the Hawks games left this season are on the road.

The conversation devolves from hockey woes into what the best spots are for picking up in which cities, to who’s picked up the most in what city, when Patrick arrives, looking around for somewhere to sit.

“Spot over here, Peeks,” Jon says, patting at the open cushion next to him. 

There’s a beanbag chair in the corner and Patrick looks at it for a second before hesitantly taking the seat next to Jon, in between him and Smitty. Jon places his arm behind Patrick on the back of the couch as Patrick sits stiffly next to him.

They’re so fucking weird, Aiden wishes they’d just be normal for five minutes. Or maybe that they’d just be honest with him, or each other, or all of the above.

_Fuck_ , he feels his buzz wearing off. He rolls his shoulders and tries to shake out the tension.

“What’d I miss?” Patrick asks.

“Stalzy was trying to tell us he’s hooked up the most on the road,” Bolly says, rolling his eyes.

“I wasn’t trying, actually,” Stalzy cuts in. “I just said I had. Care to dispute me?”

“I think the better question is, which dynamic is the best in bed,” Skills adds. “Unpopular opinion maybe, but I say betas.”

Aiden snorts. “No fucking way! It’s definitely omegas.”

Stalzy waves his arm around in a chopping motion. “You ever slept with an alpha? They know what the fuck they want.” He waggles his eyebrows in a suggestive motion that garners more than a few laughs.

And Aiden is about to let the whole thing go and move on, it’s not a big deal who sleeps with who, or why, he’s never really cared, but then he looks over and sees Jon press his entire leg, from thigh to calf, up against Patrick’s - watches Patrick lean into Jon’s body a fraction of an inch - and something inside him that’s been winding up for days and days now finally stretches too far it breaks, then unravels.

“And so do omegas,” he says, barging back into the conversation. “Half the time you don’t even have to draw it out of ‘em. Just touch them where they’re most slick and they’ll turn into a whining, sobbing mess in thirty seconds flat. You know what I mean, right, Jon?”

“What?” Jon's eyes widen, almost like he wasn’t fully paying attention but now he’s replaying the words in his mind and he’s caught out.

“Aiden,” a voice says. It sounds like Patrick.

“Don’t even have to work them up much,” Aiden continues, ignoring him. “They’re so eager for it. They’ll beg you for it.”

“Aiden,” the voice says, again, strained.

At the same time, Jon's voice cuts through Aiden's fog. " _Enough_ ," he hisses. The veins in his neck bulge.

“Tell me I’m wrong!” Aiden says, voice rising. “You can’t. They’re all the same, like to pretend it’s about more than just pheromones, and dynamics don’t matter, attraction is relative, and all that bullshit. But the second an alpha with a big knot walks in the room they all turn into little bitches in heat.”

“Shut up,” Patrick yells, standing. “Shut the fuck up!” 

It cuts through all of the noise in the room until everything goes deathly quiet, the only sound is the Guitar Hero menu song looping.

Everyone is looking at Patrick and Aiden as they stare at each other, eyes fierce. Aiden isn’t sure what he’s expecting to happen next, for Patrick to sucker punch him, for Jon to beat his ass like Zetterberg’s, for Seabs to show up and tell him to get out. None of that happens. Patrick walks out calmly and Jon sits up in his seat, drilling holes through Aiden’s skull with his gaze.

“You happy now?” he asks, looking like he’s ready to grind Aiden into dust within the palm of his hand, and then he gets up and walks out too. Probably to follow Patrick, but Aiden can’t find it in him to feel bitter about it at the moment.

He turns to watch Jon go and is startled to see Ivy standing in the doorway, her hands fists at her sides and her expression fiery. When she too spins on her heel and goes to leave, Aiden finally jumps up out of his seat. He rushes up the stairs and through several bodies blocking his way to the front door and only catches up to her when she’s half way down the street.

“Ivy!” he calls, running up beside her. “Hey, hey, hey. Where are you going?”

“Home,” she bites out.

“Why?”

“Are you serious?!” She looks at him like he’s insane.

When she starts walking again, he jumps in front of her, trying to stop her momentarily. “How much of that did you hear? Because that wasn’t about you.”

This is so bad. This is...god. He’s such a moron.

Ivy narrows her eyes at him, suspicious. “Who was about it then, Aiden? Because all I heard was ‘they’ and ‘omegas’ and ‘bitches in heat.’ And that’s more than enough.”

Her phone buzzes and she unlocks it, typing out a few messages while Aiden tries to figure out a way of this absolute clusterfuck he’s just put himself in.

“I didn’t mean it, not really,” he says lamely.

“Sure.”

He cups a hand around her face and draws her attention back to him, slowly. “I don’t! I’m just pissed at my brother for fucking lying to me, for years.”

“And you thought the best way to deal with that situation was to humiliate him in front of a group of his friends and teammates? You thought that was an okay thing to do?” 

“No.”

“Then what?” she asks, her dark eyes sad.

Aiden knows how he answers this next question is important, but he can’t think of what to say, too worked up and pissed off and drunk.

“I don’t know! I didn’t think,” he murmurs.

“Obviously,” Ivy says, softly. She reaches up and places her hand around his and moves it away from her face, bringing it down and gently letting it go. “Look, I get that people say things sometimes in the heat of the moment that they don’t mean, especially in regards to their siblings. I’ve said plenty of shit to Trey or James, usually Trey, during arguments that aren't true, but I need you to understand what you did back there was extremely fucked up.”

“I do.”

“Do you? Do you really, Aiden?” she asks, searching. “Because it’s something I’ve struggled with all of my life. People thinking I’m lesser, I’m weaker, I’m just here to be a breeder and keep my alpha happy. And I’m not even cross dynamic, like your brother is. I can’t imagine the kind of bigotry and discrimination he’s faced...just for existing. Just for being who he is.”

A sinking, sick pit is beginning to form underneath Aiden’s ribcage, his chest tight with it.

He swallows hard and tries to reach for her again when he hears a car honk from beside them on the road. Inside it looks like one of Ivy’s friends, Kathryn, that he met a few weeks back. That’s who she must’ve been texting, someone to come pick her up.

“I shouldn’t have said it,” Aiden says.

“Don’t tell me. Tell Patrick.”

“I’m more concerned with you not hating my guts right now.”

Ivy’s face softens and she grabs his forearm, gives it a gentle squeeze. “I don’t hate you. I just need some space. And maybe some time to think.”

That doesn’t sound good. That sounds like the kind of thing someone says right before they’re about to rip out your heart.

“Ivy, c’mon,” Aiden pleads. He tugs at his ear, not knowing what else to do or say, and knowing he’s screwed up too much to fix it.

There’s another honk of a car horn and Ivy steps back.

“I need to go home,” she says, mournfully. “Go talk to Patrick. We’ll figure this out later.”

Aiden sees her get in Kathryn’s car and ride off down the road. He considers walking back to Seabs’ house and driving himself to Patrick’s apartment, but the last thing he needs is to get pulled over. He calls himself a cab, and dumps himself inside. 

*

Patrick’s sitting at the kitchen island, staring at a glass of water, when Aiden walks into the apartment. Most of the lights are off and the space is almost silent but for the distant sounds of wind against the windows and Patrick’s knuckles cracking.

Every room is dark but the kitchen and Aiden can’t tell if his brother was waiting for him, if he should go over and try to apologize, or call this night a loss and try in the morning.

He takes a few steps into the room and sees Patrick turn his head. “You need to move out.”

This reaction shouldn’t have come as much of a shock to Aiden after the shit he said earlier, but it somehow still does, a sucker punch to the jaw he wasn’t expecting.

“Why?” he asks. “Because of tonight?” 

Patrick looks at Aiden like he’s slow, his mouth a tight line. “Yes.”

“Jesus Christ, Patrick. It was one comment. It’s not that big of a deal.”

“To you!” he says, and abruptly stands from his barstool, eyes a little wild. “It’s not that big of a deal _to you_ , because you haven’t had to live the life that I have. You’ve had people…” he trails off, letting out a quick, rushed breath. “You know what? Forget it.”

Patrick’s angry, or he’s getting there as each second ticks by. Aiden knows he fucked up, that he should apologize like Ivy said, but he finds the longer he stands in this room with Patrick and thinks about the last few weeks, months, years, and all of the things that have gone unspoken between them, the lies and half truths, the constant sweeping of issues under the rug, that he doesn’t want to let it go. Not anymore.

“No, c’mon!” Aiden says, walking farther into the room. He considers flipping on a light so they can fully see each other, not wanting this to happen in the dark, but ultimately he chooses against it. “You keep telling me I don’t understand. Ivy tells me I don’t understand. So fucking explain it to me. What’s so hard about being an omega? From what I can tell you guys are worshiped whenever you do anything.”

Patrick flinches. “ _What_?”

“Whenever you do anything above average you get praised for it,” he says. “Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. It’s been happening since we were kids. If I did well in school it was ‘As you should, Aiden’ and if you did well in school it was ‘We’re so proud of you, Patrick’. If I scored a goal in a game it was the same fucking thing. You were coddled.”

Patrick makes a disgusted noise from the back of his throat. “Is that what you think it was? People treating me like I was special? I guess it would look that way to you.”

“It was that way. It’s always been that way.”

“No,” Patrick shakes his head. “You just don’t want to step out of your own safe little perspective.”

They’re standing about ten feet apart now and the room feels strangely small the louder their voices rise. Aiden wonders briefly, in the back of his mind, if anyone in the apartments above or below them can hear, and if they can, do they care. Mom used to tell them to be kind with each other, to take care of one another, because there will be times when they are the only family they’ve got.

It’s been a long time since Aiden’s felt like anyone has bothered watching out for him.

“I’m still waiting for you to tell me how it ‘really' is then,” he says, gesturing for Patrick to speak. “Go on.”

Patrick’s expression crumbles for a moment into something wretched before rearranging itself, his mouth pursed and his eyes flat. “Don’t be fucking condescending. It’s hard enough to say this shit without you being an asshole about it.”

“Fine. Continue.”

For a few seconds Patrick stands there, eyes darting around, looking for what, Aiden isn’t sure. Eventually he grabs a hold of his right wrist with his left hand and clamps his fingers around it.

“Do you remember before we presented, how Dad used to watch us skate drills together during practice?” Patrick asks, quieter now. “How he’d watch us practice board battles and give us suggestions about how to get the puck loose?”

Aiden nods.

“But then our birthday rolled around and you presented as a beta and I was an omega and it stopped. Suddenly it was all about teaching you how to get the puck loose, how to wedge in between D-men and stay strong on the puck, while I was told to stay back and wait. Wait for a better shooting opportunity, wait for it to be free from the scrum in front of the net, stay back and wait. And what it really meant was he didn’t think I was strong enough to get it myself, he didn’t think I could,” he pauses and takes a slow breath. “That’s one example of a thousand.”

“So people underestimate you?” Aiden says. “You think that doesn’t happen to anyone else? That it doesn’t happen to me?” 

It’s like Patrick thinks he’s the only one who has ever had to deal with an unfair world.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Patrick groans. He scrubs a hand over his face and up into his hair, pulling at the top where it’s longer than Aiden’s own hair now. “I know you deal with your own amount of garbage, but you don’t get treated like you’re a weak little bitch because you’re a beta, Aiden. You know how many times I’ve been called that just in the past few months? I’ve lost count. You know how old I was the first time someone said it to me? Two days after we presented. _Two days_ ,” he says, holding up a hand in demonstration. He looks at Aiden desperately, like he needs something from him, and when Aiden can’t think of what to do Patrick’s shoulders slump, his body posture deflating. “I don’t even know why I’m trying. You’re not listening.”

Impossible. It feels impossible to know how to respond. “I am listening! I get that it wasn’t easy for you, but it wasn’t easy for me either.”

“You don’t get looked over because you’re a beta,” Patrick says flatly. He’s staring at the floor, like he’s already shutting down. 

But he doesn’t get to check out of this argument, not anymore.

“No, but I do get looked over because I’m your brother.”

Patrick’s eyes flick up, his brow furrowing. “What?” 

“Yes,” Aiden says simply, as it’s just the truth.

“When?”

Aiden lets out a dry laugh. “Constantly. It’s funny you think you’re the only one that deals with shit from Dad, or the league, or gets ignored by Jon. Did you forget that I used to be a fucking right wing until Dad made me shift to left so _you_ wouldn’t have competition?”

Patrick’s mouth falls open, whatever shield he’s been trying to construct during their conversation is beginning to crack open again. It’s surprising how struck he looks by this information, as if it’s new to him, as if he wasn’t there experiencing it with Aiden as it happened to both of them. For years after Dad made him shift positions he held this fury inside of himself like a tempest. It felt uncontrollable and enormous when he was younger, swirling in his guts, ready to be set loose to wreak havoc on everyone around him. As he grew older he learned to hide it away, squeeze it down, control it, until it only filled his chest, until it was only the size of a fist. These days it barely registers, a thing he mostly doesn’t even think about as he’s comfortable where he plays and how he plays, but the anger and hurt linger like a phantom limb, prickling along his skin in moments like this.

“He did that for both of us,” Patrick murmurs, but he doesn’t sound certain, and it stings Aiden anew to hear him say it.

“If that’s what’s easier for you to believe, sure. Whatever,” Aiden scoffs. “But you conveniently got to stay in your position, where you were comfortable, when I had to start over. And it’s not like I was given much time to relearn how to shoot or skate on the opposite side, nope, I was expected to be as good as you without a single misstep, and when I didn’t Dad would rip my head off. Maybe you forgot that too.”

“Or maybe I was too busy trying to keep my head down and play well enough to be one of the 3% of omega males to make it into the NHL.” Patrick slides his thumb along his knuckles, up and down along all four fingers, compulsive. “You know how many betas there are in the league? Over four hundred. That’s 57% of all players. There are twenty-one omegas, most of which struggle to play more than five to ten minutes of ice time a night.”

Aiden’s trying to match up the math in his head with the numbers Patrick just threw out at him, but it’s making his brain hurt. He doesn’t know how his brother remembers all of them, the stats and percentages and scores. It’s too much, it agitates him. “Why is that my problem?”

“It’s not. I’m just explaining to you what it’s like for me,” Patrick says, he rubs the back of his hand over his face. “You seem to think it’s so easy for omegas, right? That we’re coddled and given extra advantages because, I don’t know, you see it in movies or on fucking Twitter? But it’s not like that for me, not with Dad, and not with hockey.”

This is exhausting. The more they talk the less it feels like they’re getting anywhere. Aiden walks from the kitchen to the living room and drops down onto the couch, placing his elbows on his knees as he hunches over. He inhales slowly and feels his earlier rage start to seep out of him like beads of sweat on a hot summer day.

He tilts his head up, turning to Patrick, who’s followed him into the room. “What do you want me to say?”

Patrick stands there for a long beat, unmoving, for once. “I just want you to fucking acknowledge it, Aiden. Just stop pretending it doesn’t happen.” His eyes look wet.

“I don’t - I wasn’t,” Aiden starts, the words bitten and sharp, and he’s not even sure why or what he’s fighting against anymore. If he opens the bottle and lets the storm free and there’s nothing left, who is he? Is he still himself? Is he enough? 

He’ll have to find out. 

“I didn’t mean to do that,” Aiden exhales. “I’m sorry.”

Patrick shuffles over to the couch and takes a ginger seat next to Aiden. From this close up he can see the tear tracks on Patrick’s cheeks and he swallows harshly, his own eyes suddenly burning.

“I’m sorry too,” Patrick says, staring down at the ground once more, or maybe his hands, his fingers twisted together. “I know it wasn’t easy with Dad. And I didn’t realize how bad it was for you in Philly, until recently.”

The room feels bigger in the dark somehow, the light of the moon coming in through the floor to ceiling windows and leaving everything in a ghostly gray glow. Aiden briefly wonders if Ivy’s at home right now, if she’s still mad at him, if Jon is too. He wants things to work out in Chicago so badly he aches with it.

“They used to call me Number Two jokingly, at first, because I went second after you in the draft,” he tells Patrick, or maybe the open room, himself, anyone that’s listening. “I figured it was like a hazing thing, and it’d taper off eventually. But then every time the Flyers played the Hawks I’d get so nervous about playing better than you, get all up in my own head and...I just ended up fucking myself over. And some of them, like Pronger, picked up on it after a while, started saying it more and more. Like he thought it’d motivate me,” he sighs, so tired all of sudden. “A lot of the other guys followed suit. After the Cup loss it was just. Unbearable.”

He feels Patrick lean into his side, pressing their arms together.

“They’re pieces of shit,” Patrick says viciously. “It could’ve easily been you to have scored that OT goal in game six. There was-”

“Don’t. Please,” Aiden chokes out. “I can’t play What If. I ran every single possible scenario in my head last summer until it drove me crazy. When I got traded it felt like a fresh start, and even if you don’t want me here I want it to be better than it was in Philly. I need it to be better.”

From his periphery, he can see Patrick’s surprised and pained face turn to him. “Why do you think I don’t want you here?”

“Because you’ve seemed pissed at me since the moment I stepped off the plane at O’Hare?” Aiden offers.

Patrick frowns. “I wasn’t pissed.”

“Then what is it?”

“I was - I am - worried.”

“About?” Aiden asks, confused.

“This! Right now!” Patrick gestures between them. “Us going at each other’s throats. We used to be… so close. But ever since we presented, and then later after you went off to UND instead of coming to the OHL with me, it’s just gotten worse.”

Aiden watches Patrick wipe at his face even as another errant tear escapes from the corner of his eye.

“It wasn’t anything to do with our dynamics,” he says.

Patrick looks at him questioningly. “Really?

“Not for me,” Aiden shrugs. “It had everything to do with Dad treating you like the fucking golden boy of the family and me wanting to just breathe without being compared to you for one second.”

They both turn away after that, glancing out at the windows again, like the weight of Aiden’s words are too heavy to take in head on. The wind has died down since they began arguing and now it’s almost too quiet, too dark, too still in all of this open space around them. The truth should feel huge and daunting, fill it up, but it doesn’t, it’s small and fragile. Aiden doesn’t want it to shatter now that it’s newly free, but he can’t keep it safe either without wrapping it up again.

There’s nothing to be done. All he can do is hope.

“I didn’t have any control over that,” Patrick says after a few minutes, his voice equally delicate and shaky.

“But it still happened,” Aiden replies, and he can hear the weariness as he speaks. This night feels so long. “I don’t have any control over being a beta and you blame me. How is that fair?”

“Except I don’t blame you.” 

“Then why’d you pull away? We asked you to come to UND with us.”

Patrick wraps his arms around his middle. “Because I was trying to survive. I could tell you felt like I was this responsibility you had to deal with. And I could tell Jonny felt like he had to always take care of me. I was a burden on you both,” he says and stops. He takes several breaths, stomping the heel of his foot into the carpet, trying to shore himself up. “I had to let you guys go so you didn’t feel obligated to me anymore, and so I could find out if I could do it on my own.”

Aiden pulls Patrick into his side, arms enveloping him. It’s an awkward hug at this angle with the way they’re still mostly sitting parallel to each other, but fuck it anyway. He rests his head against the back of Patrick’s and just keeps him there for a moment, folded together like they’d do when they were little enough to still get a kick out of sleeping in a nylon camping tent together in the basement during winter weekends. Every time the pipes would whistle they’d both jerk and scramble together, giggling out of fear of some imagined monster unable to get to them through the protection of the zipped up tent door.

“Or you could’ve just told me?” Aiden replies. “And I would’ve said, ‘No, dipshit, you’re fine. Come with us.’ I mean, fuck, before everyone else it was you and me, Patty. I thought it’d always be that way.” He pulls back and looks at Patrick directly in the eyes because he needs to say this to his face. “Even when we didn’t like each other all that much I still loved you. You can tell me anything. I’m not Dad, you know?”

Patrick nods. “I know.”

“Then why did you lie to me?”

“Lie to you?” Patrick asks, uncomprehending. He stares off like he’s trying to find the key in his brain to unlock what Aiden means.

“About Jon,” Aiden says.

“ _What_?” Patrick’s eyes snap to him, go wide. “What do you mean? I didn’t.”

“Didn’t?” Aiden asks. “So you aren’t in love with him?”

Maybe it’s not fair to bombard his brother with this right after they’ve just had a huge heart to heart, but if tonight is a night of truths he wants everything out in the open and on the table. And by the way Patrick’s ears go red and his neck flushes from Aiden’s question, it seems clear what the answer is for this particular secret.

“I didn’t - I was going to say - I didn’t do it on purpose,” Patrick mutters. He pulls his arms free and clamps a hand around his wrist again, his own thumb rubbing the veins that run up the inside.

Aiden watches him, Patrick’s shoulders folding in almost guiltily. “How long?” 

“I don’t know. Shattuck maybe.”

“Are you serious?” Aiden says, feeling his eyes bug out of his head. “Since fucking boarding school?!”

Patrick ducks his head down. “I’m sorry.”

“All this fucking time and you never told me. Why?” He tries to think back to fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, what did he miss? Obviously a fuck ton. “He’s our best friend.”

“Because I knew he didn’t feel the same. And because now, well,” Patrick trails off, his left hand still gripping at his right wrist, cradling it almost, and something about the sight of it twinges a memory in the back of Aiden’s head, familiar.

This response hits Aiden unexpectedly, pulling the floor from under his feet. It doesn’t matter that he’s sitting; it feels like he’s falling, trying to grasp at the words Patrick just said. Is he saying that they aren’t dating? It can’t be one-sided, Aiden knows this.

“‘Well’ what?”

“The two of you are together,” Patrick says, like someone reached into his chest and clawed out his bones, his lungs, his heart, draining his blood too. “And I didn’t ask because I couldn’t talk about it. Couldn’t accept it. And I know this makes everything so fucking awkward between all of us, but I promise I won’t get in the way. I just need a little more time to come to terms with things and then it’ll be fine.” He says it all in one breath and when he’s done, he nods, like he’s trying to convince himself.

He almost persuades Aiden as well until Aiden replays what he just heard, again, and all of the metal wheels in his mind clang and clank and finally screech to an abrupt halt.

“Dude?”

“Yeah?” Patrick says.

“What in the ever-loving-fuck are you talking about?”

Patrick jerks a little and turns to him, his expression as lost as Aiden’s is, he has no doubt. “You and Jonny?”

Aiden’s head hurts.

“Me and Jon? As in you think we’re a couple?”

“Yes?” Patrick says, although he sounds a thousand percent less certain that he did ten seconds ago.

“Holy shit,” Aiden laughs. He can’t help it. “This is...fuck. Unbelievable.”

Patrick thinks Jon and him are...Aiden can’t even finish the thought without wanting to fall out. He’s looking at Aiden so helplessly Aiden knows he isn’t fucking around, he really believes this to be true. 

Wild.

Patrick looks at him, waiting, anxious. “I don’t get it.”

“Yeah, clearly,” Aiden huffs out another laugh. “We aren’t together. Never have been. Ivy, the girl you met tonight? She’s my girlfriend. Or, well, I hope she is if she doesn’t decide to dump my ass for being a gigantic moron.” Patrick’s expression is still suspicious. To make everything as direct and simple as possible he says, “I don't want Jon.”

“You don’t?”

“No. No way,” he shakes his head. “I’ve only been with one guy, and it was okay, but I prefer women. And honestly alphas are too much for me. I couldn't be with Jon, he’d drive me nuts every time he tried to order me around.”

The corner of Patrick’s mouth quirks up for an instant, like his mind went to Jon and got stuck there. “He’s an idiot.”

It’s kind of sweet to see his brother this enamored with someone. Aiden’s not been around for all of Patrick’s relationships, as short lived as most of them were, but he’s met a few of them and none of them have ever garnered a look as soft as that. They’ve never been able to keep Patrick still, settle his nerves, or even make him laugh the way Jon does. And maybe that was a sign Aiden should’ve picked up on years ago, but he sees it now and he recognizes it, the power it has over each of them.

“Yeah, you both are,” Aiden grins, knocking his shoulder to Patrick’s. “And if either of you had bothered telling me what was going on in the last fucking decade maybe we would’ve fixed this already.”

The smile disappears, falling away and leaving a shuttered look in Patrick’s eyes. “There’s nothing to fix.” 

“God, give me strength,” Aiden says, glancing up at the ceiling.

“If there were,” Patrick says, voice cracking. He clears his throat and sits upright, his shields resurrected. “If there were feelings on his side he would’ve said something by now.”

“Or maybe he was waiting for you to say something and you didn’t, genius!” Aiden smacks his hand against Patrick’s forehead. He winces and smacks back, the two of them wrestling with each other until they’re both out of breath and Aiden has his arm around Patrick’s neck, tucked into his side. If they’re really leaning on each other more now it’s not just because they’re physically exhausted. It occurs to Aiden in passing how ridiculous it is that they’d both believed the other was dating Jon. They’ll probably need to talk about it soon, and he’ll need to figure out a way to get it through Patrick’s thick skull just how far Jon’s gone for him, but he gets distracted by what Patrick says next.

“I should’ve talked to you about everything, Dad, hockey, all of it,” Patrick admits. “I’m sorry I didn’t.”

“I’m sorry too. About what I said earlier.” Aiden lets his arm go slack, Patrick shifting until they’re still close to each other, but not pulled in as tightly. 

“It’s okay.”

“I didn’t mean it. I’ve never thought you were lesser.” He pauses for a beat. “You’ve always been better than me, to be honest.” It’s not an easy confession, even if it’s accurate.

Patrick shakes his head. “I’m not.”

It’s just like him to not accept this when Aiden’s offering it to him on a silver platter. After everything else that’s happened tonight, this should be the least complicated matter sitting between them.

“Stop trying to get me to say it twice. Once a year is my limit,” Aiden says, smiling. They don’t talk for a while, too tired to think or perhaps too overwhelmed with all of this new information settling between them. “You know he fought Matt Smaby for you.”

Patrick freezes. When he looks at Aiden, his eyes are impossibly huge. “Jonny?”

“Yeah, he went after Kyle and Garrett that same night. Took ‘em all on at once. He never told me why though. Just that they messed with you and deserved it.”

Patrick’s hands, which were covering his knees, retract to his lap where he grasps his wrist again. It must be a comforting action. Aiden’s seen him do it no less than five times in the last hour alone.

“It was because they left a note under the dorm door for me that said ‘Suck my dick, omega bitch,’” Patrick whispers, like he can’t say it out loud.

And maybe Aiden thought he knew what he did earlier, what he said earlier, was shitty, but this detail really cements just how careless he’s been. For years he was right there next to Patrick while Patrick was being harassed and bullied and he had no idea. He might have been blissfully unaware, but his ignorance doesn’t leave him without fault either, and it doesn’t absolve him of not being there for Patrick when Patrick needed him. He should’ve been there for him. He has to be better going forward.

“Christ, Patty. I’m…” he drops his head into hands.

“I know,” Patrick says, because he can finish Aiden’s thought. He understands even if he shouldn’t, even if Aiden doesn’t deserve it.

“Jon should kick my ass too,” he says, morosely.

“I was thinking about asking him before you got home,” Patrick laughs, elbowing Aiden’s side until he reluctantly smiles. He stares off into the darkness of the room, at minutely shifting shadows and stationary furniture. “I never knew it was Jonny - back then - that he did all of that.”

Aiden rolls his eyes. “Well, you are pretty clueless.”

“Fuck off,” Patrick sighs, but he’s smiling a real smile this time and their arms are pressed together as they lean back into the couch, worn out. “You don’t have to move out.”

Aiden thinks about it for a while, his brain feeling sleep foggy and heavy. He looks around at Patrick’s home, all of his belongings, and realizes how there’s a place for him here in Chicago now, wherever he goes.

“But maybe I should,” he says. “It’s probably time. We need our own space for ourselves... and our people.”

They sit there for a while longer, silent and thinking, until Patrick checks his phone and sees it’s too late for either of them to be awake if they want to be functioning for practice on Monday. Aiden heaves himself off of the couch first then drags Patrick with him, and together they shuffle to their bedrooms until Patrick stops in the pitch black hallway.

“Are we okay?” he asks, low and soft.

“We’re okay.” Aiden tells him, clasping his brother gently on the shoulder, pressing his fingertips in. “We’re gonna be okay.”


	3. Jonny

It’s Monday morning and Jonny’s pissed off.

His alarm is blaring in his ear from when he forgot to turn the volume off at three in the morning, face half-pressed into his pillow. He’d been watching a compilation video of drunk people doing stupid things, but switched to a beekeeper discussing the importance of earning the trust of a colony before he finally passed out. Her voice had been airy and soft, and watching her scoop up the bees with her bare hands to move them into a new frame hive had been the only thing that could calm his mind.

As soon as he’s awake, however, he thinks of Patrick.

Jonny can’t seem to shake the distraught expression on his face, or the way Aiden had sounded so cold and flat spitting out those ugly, fucked up words at Seabs' party.

He gets up to shower and cleans himself without much thought, scrubbing shampoo into his hair and the last of his bar soap over his body. He’ll need to go shopping soon, or call in for a delivery order. When he’s dressed and in the kitchen making his morning protein shake and taking his daily vitamins, he finds he’s out of his Superfoods powder and all of his bottled water. Fucking perfect. Now he’s going to have to leave extra early.

It’s easy to let himself be distracted while he’s moving, trying to get from point A to point B, keeping himself busy. But when he’s in the drive thru line at Smoothie King, his mind wanders back to the party again.

After Patrick had walked out, Jonny followed after him, discovering him standing on Seabs’ back porch, alone, arms wrapped around himself tightly.

“You okay?” Jonny said, even when he knew it was an idiotic question to ask.

“Yeah,” Patrick said, and then he let out a rushed breath, shaking his head. “I don’t know. Not really.”

They hadn’t touched in...so long. Months. It felt like years. Jonny didn’t know if Patrick was embarrassed about his unexpected heat, or if maybe he felt uncomfortable with how Jonny had reacted. It was difficult for Jonny to decipher between the two and he couldn’t make himself ask even though he knew it was the responsible thing to do, to ease Patrick as best he could. He was still trying to work up the balls to make it happen.

It was why he was hesitant to reach out to Patrick then, to press a hand to his back and let him know he wasn’t alone. There was an uncalculated risk involved that Patrick would pull away, that his action in this moment would only strain things further between them, but god, Jonny couldn’t stand there, watching Patrick suffering from the blow of Aiden’s outburst, and not console him. It went against every fiber of Jonny’s very being, every bone in his entire body.

The natural motion was to set his hand on Patrick’s lower back, where it felt like it belonged, but he forced himself to go with the center instead, more neutral territory. And then he held his breath and waited.

And waited.

And finally Patrick looked over at him, his beautiful eyes glassy and remarkably gray in the low yellow light of the paper lantern decorations hanging above them on the porch.

“It’s not true,” Jonny said, because he needed Patrick to hear it, and believe it.

Patrick closed his eyes. “Maybe it is.”

“Peeks.” Jonny frowned. There was so much he wanted to say and it was all wrapped in how much Patrick meant to Jonny. At times like these, untangling his thoughts and trying to sort out what was appropriate to say to his friend and teammate from the words that wanted to escape from his heart and fly straight out of his mouth, felt like an unimaginable task.

He did the only thing that felt right and pulled Patrick to him, tucking him into his arms. They stood, unmoving, for so long, with Patrick barely resting his head on Jonny’s shoulder, that when someone made a loud, joyous noise within the house, they both startled and stepped apart.

Patrick glanced at Jonny quickly, then away. “Sorry,” he said, like he was upset again. “I shouldn’t.”

“Shouldn’t?” Jonny asked, confused.

“I need to go home.”

“I can drive you,” Jonny offered.

Patrick shook his head and took an unsteady step forward, wobbling a little when he landed wrong on a groove in the porch boarding.

“I’m good. Only had one beer,” he said and kept walking, like he was in a hurry to leave. “I’ll see you later, Tazer.”

Then he was gone and Jonny was left to figure out what had happened and why it had all spiraled out of control so fast. 

He'd thought about it the rest of Saturday night and all of Sunday, going back and forth over the last few days, weeks, months, trying to pick out what he missed, and why.

A better conclusion still hasn’t come to him. But he knows he needs to talk to Aiden and he needs to clear the air as soon as fucking possible.

There’s a little over ten minutes to spare before he arrives at practice and that’s about all this morning has in favor for him because his smoothie sucks and it’s gushing rain outside, soaking him through by the time he makes it into the UC. Changing from his street clothes into his Under Armour, he considers heading over to the cafeteria for some breakfast when he sees Aiden walk into Paulie’s office.

He waits outside for a few minutes until Aiden reappears.

“Hey,” Aiden says, surprised.

Might as well rip the bandaid off now.

“Can I talk to you?” Jonny asks.

“Yeah, sure,” Aiden says easily. “What’s up?”

He grabs at the strap of his gear bag, tightening his hand around it, and it’s so much a Patrick movement that Jonny finds himself staring at Aiden’s fist for an instant.

Aiden has a scar along his left thumb from when he got his hand slashed so badly at UND it busted the skin open around his knuckle and almost broke the bone. He’d had to sit out of games for two weeks, sulky and nervous about his stats, restless like Patrick always is to be back on the ice whenever he’s not. His hands are slightly bigger than Patrick’s, and his fingernails are longer than Patrick’s too, from a lack of biting them. It’s just one part of the two of them, but there’s a hundred little differences Jonny can pick up on just from a glance.

Aiden gives him an expectant look and Jonny blinks away his thoughts.

“About the party on Saturday,” he says, shifting into captain mode. “I don’t know what’s going on with you and Kaner, he hasn’t said anything to me, but you _can’t_ say that shit to him. You can’t do it, Aiden.”

He’s trying to form the speech as he speaks it - not the best plan of action, but he’s done more with less. It’s important he makes his point to Aiden without alienating him because as much as he’d like to rip Aiden a new asshole for hurting Patrick, he can’t. It’d potentially lower morale in the locker room, destroy chemistry with his line mate, fuck up game outcomes. It could even damage his relationship with Aiden as a teammate, as Patrick’s immediate family, and as a close friend.

It’s a delicate tightrope to walk and Jonny has about as much elegance as a bull in a china shop, on a good day. 

“You’re right,” Aiden says.

Jonny nods, and continues on. “I get what it’s like to fight with a brother, trust me.”

“Yeah.”

“Me and Davey have ended up in some nasty fights and my mom has chewed me the fuck out for them because I’m the older brother and I’m supposed to know better. Blah blah,” Jonny says and looks at Aiden until he makes eye contact. “And I am, I should’ve. Not because I’m older, but because we need to take care of each other. Kaner deserves that too.”

Aiden nods, his expression relaxed and open. “He does. It won’t happen again,” he says and he sounds sincere.

It takes Jonny a moment to catch up because it’s like he’s been behind since the second this conversation began. He expected a fair amount of pushback, the sibling kind, where blame is thrown around and no one wants to admit they were wrong. It’s not as if Jonny hasn’t been present to see Patrick and Aiden make their way through too many fights to count as they were growing up. 

Duncs and Bolly pass them by in the hallway, throwing out a few quick greetings as they go. When Jonny and Aiden are alone again, Jonny surveys Aiden’s face.

“Have you talked to him?” Jonny asks.

“After the party that night, yeah. We talked for a while,” Aiden says. “It’s better now, I think.”

Jonny waits for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t, and Jonny decides not to push it. If they talked it out and got to a better place than wherever they were that night, then that’s progress, and Jonny can keep an eye on it, make sure he’s paying attention where he wasn’t before, and stop this from happening in the future. And the thing is, Jonny’s not naive, he knows this won’t be the last time Patrick and Aiden get mad at each other, or even fight in front of the team, but Saturday wasn’t so much of an argument as it was Aiden stabbing at Patrick’s weak spots, and _that_ Jonny will not have happen again.

“I’m not trying to drag it all up. If you guys dealt with it, that’s great. But...I need you to know. That trash you said to him? Not okay. Ever.”

Aiden hangs his head, pressing his lips together. “I know.” He reaches up to tug on his ear once and that’s always the sign for Jonny to back off. Whatever he’s said or whatever has happened since Saturday has permeated his brain, and that’s a step in the right direction in Jonny’s book.

“You can talk to me too, you know?” Jonny says and walks up to Aiden until he can curl an arm around his neck and mess up his hair a little. Predictably, Aiden shoves at him until they’ve both lost the serious lines around their eyes. “I’m here for you, Ace.”

Aiden smiles, amused probably at hearing his old UND nickname. It was the one Jonny gave him back when they were playing in bantam when Jonny lived in St. Catharine's, and the Kanes lived in Buffalo. It was only a forty minute ride back and forth, but on the weeks they didn’t get to play together, even if they were playing against each other, it felt so, _so_ much farther. 

A couple of their UND teammates overheard Jonny calling Aiden by his nickname a few weeks into their freshman year and it stuck. Jonny used to wonder if they called Aiden that in Philly, too.

Aiden knocks his elbow against Jonny’s. “Back at ya, bud. You eat yet?”

“Nope,” Jonny says.

“Hungry?”

“Yep.” Jonny grins, and they take off to the cafeteria together.

Later, at practice, Jonny watches the way Patrick skates onto the ice, his eyes a little brighter and his laugh a little sweeter. When Aiden finds him once drills are over, they stickhandle beside each other for a while, shifting into keep-away after that, and they both seem lighter in some unnameable way that Jonny can’t quite pin down. But it’s good, it makes Jonny smile too.

*

The next day Jonny’s leaving the UC after a few meetings and taking the annual team photos when he sees Patrick walking out to the parking lot just ahead of him.

He thinks about not pushing it, like he has been for months now, because he knows Patrick needs space to deal with life in his own way and on his own time. If Jonny hovers too much, presses in the wrong way, he’ll close up like a frightened mollusk, jolting back into his shell. But it’s been months now and it’s never taken this long for Patrick to come around again. They’ve never let distance like this grow between them, and honestly, Jonny’s extremely fucking done with it.

He jogs up beside Patrick before he makes it to his car and bumps their arms together. “Hey, you.”

Patrick looks up at him, startled at first before a swift smile breaks over his mouth, lighting up his whole face. A second later, he’s ducking his head, tamping it down. “Hi.”

Jonny wishes he knew why Patrick does it, why he tries to hold back his sweetness when it’s all Jonny ever wants to see for the rest of his life.

“Busy?” he asks, nudging the toe of his shoe against Patrick’s. He wants Patrick to look up again.

Patrick shoves his hands into his pants pockets and tilts his head up a fraction. “Just heading home. Probably take a nap.”

“There isn’t a game tonight, Peeks.”

“I know,” he laughs lightly. “Just routine, I guess.”

Jonny watches him look up a bit more, his eyes focused on the something over Jonny’s shoulder rather than Jonny’s face, but that’s not exactly abnormal for him. Patrick usually has to be in a very good mood, very comfortable, or have just scored a goal to make prolonged eye contact with Jonny. He picked up on it back in boarding school and ever since he’s been more than a little obsessed with trying to figure out why Patrick won’t meet his eyes at certain times, why he will at others, and how Jonny can get him to look longer.

“Come to lunch with me?” he asks.

Patrick’s gaze flicks up to his. “Now?” he says, surprised.

“No, later. How’s next week at noon for you?” Jonny flashes him a quick grin. “Of course now, bud. I miss you. We haven’t hung out in a while.”

Patrick’s expression transforms in the most beautifully vulnerable way, and it’s like a drug. If Jonny were an addict, this would be the best kind of heroin, a straight shot right into his veins.

“Yeah, it has been a while,” Patrick says, softly. Then he frowns, glancing down. “But.”

“But?”

This is one of those moments Jonny wants to be able to read Patrick’s mind. He tries to subtly scent him, but Patrick is always locked up so tightly around him it’s hard to get much out of him at times but the faintest whiff, like the impression of a feeling.

He can sense Patrick’s worried, maybe a little anxious, but then he’s always a little anxious outside the walls of his or Jonny’s apartments or shared hotel room.

Jonny’s about to leave it, but then he senses a tiny speck of sorrow amongst the chaos of other scents. It’s a sucker punch to feel it and not be able to ask Patrick about it. He tries to pull it to himself, away from Patrick and down underneath his foot where he can crush it into the concrete. It’s not possible, but Jonny likes to imagine it is all the same.

“Nothing,” Patrick says, shaking himself out whatever thought he was having and looking up at Jonny with composure. “Where do you want to eat?”

Jonny wraps his arm around Patrick’s shoulder and draws him close. “You’re letting me pick?” he says, mock-gasping. “What’s the special occasion?”

He redirects them toward his car a few lanes away. Patrick walks with him, tucked under Jonny’s arm.

“Don’t I always end up letting you pick anyway?” Patrick says, rolling his eyes.

“Not always,” Jonny counters.

Patrick gives him an amused, exasperated look. “Mostly always.”

Now that feels more like normal.

*

They get to Umai before the lunch rush has set in and are even seated off to the side, in a cozy little corner, after the hostess congratulates them on making the playoffs. Jonny sits with his back to the wall without thinking about it, but it’s an action with purpose all the same. Patrick doesn’t like to face the crowd when they’re out together like this, Jonny knows. It makes him anxious, like he’s being surveyed out of his element. If Jonny takes the seat closest to the wall he can keep his eye on the crowd, perhaps any potential threats (his alpha brain whispers), while Patrick can focus on what’s just in front of him. A two-fold solution to the problem.

The waiter comes by before they’re even fully settled in their seats, placing down two glasses of water and asking what beverages they’d like to drink. His name tag reads: Derek, and he’s tall, thick through the torso with black hair and a few days’ worth of scruff. He’s the kind of alpha that’s usually interested in Patrick, that Patrick is often into in return. Jonny purses his lips and prepares himself.

He’s been through this rigmarole before, he knows the beats. The guy will look at Patrick, just a glance, maybe two, and then he’ll go back again for a third, and this is when he’ll really notice Patrick: his blond curls, his big blue eyes, the plump curve of his lips and the elegant line of his nose, the perfectly square jaw, and the way it all combines to create Patrick’s beautiful face. Then he’ll maybe introduce himself or throw out a corny one-liner, anything to get a conversation going, to keep flirting with Patrick. And if he manages to keep Patrick’s attention long enough to see him smile, well, then, it’s game over. They’re hooked until they can get more of him, as much as they can get.

Jonny’s seen it enough, up close and personal. He could probably act out their little routine for them. He knows Patrick likes assertiveness but not too much touching; that he likes to be chased, but he’ll only let himself be caught when he’s ready; that he enjoys being praised, but he gets overwhelmed easily.

He wonders how Derek will fare under this checklist of dos and don'ts. If he’ll pass the test. If Jonny will have to spend their entire lunch with his fist curled under the table trying to be casually polite and not ripping the guy’s arm off his body every time he has the audacity to touch Patrick at all.

Which is why it stuns Jonny when Derek looks Patrick over, smiles mildly, then trains his eyes on Jonny and says, with a beaming grin, “Would you like to hear the specials today, Jonathan?”

Jonny flicks his eyes over to Patrick, who looks just as confused as Jonny feels, and back to Derek, who’s staring at him like he’s the last cookie in the cookie jar.

“I’m sorry, do we know each other?” Jonny asks.

Derek laughs. “Oh, unfortunately not. But I’ve been a fan for years. You’re my favorite.”

“Well, thank you,” Jonny says, never quite sure how to respond to that remark. “Did ya hear that, Kaner? I’m somebody’s favorite.” He waggles his eyebrows in Patrick’s direction until Patrick looks up from staring morosely at his menu and rolls his eyes, the edge of his mouth quirking up.

Derek proceeds to flirt his way through the drink menu and then the specials menu before he finally takes the hint and backs off long enough to let them look at what they want to order. When they’re alone, Jonny watches Patrick quietly flip through a few pages of sushi, chewing on his bottom lip as he goes. They always order the same exact shit every time they come here. Jonny doesn’t know what could possibly be so fascinating about the menu, but he’s tired of Patrick not looking at him again, so he’s going to fix that.

“Want to split a couple California rolls?” he asks, taking one of his chopsticks and tapping the back of Patrick’s hand with it, each knuckle one at a time.

“Sure,” Patrick says. “But I’m getting tempura and don’t give me that look.”

Jonny taps once more gently along his knuckles.

“I didn’t give you a look.”

Patrick scoffs. “Yeah, you did. It’s your ‘he’s gonna regret that later’ look. And I probably will, but this week has been long. I want tempura.”

“The week just started,” Jonny says. He keeps waiting for Patrick to pull his hand away, but he hasn’t yet.

“Probably just left over from Saturday, I guess,” Patrick sighs.

Derek returns then, before Jonny can press for more, and makes a list of suggestions for what Jonny might like best, paying Patrick nominal attention before disappearing again.

“Five bucks he slips you his number before the end of the meal,” Patrick says, frowning.

Jonny snorts. “Well, he can keep it.” It’s not as if Jonny’s never been with another alpha before, or even other alpha men, but he makes a rule not to spend time with people who ever treat Patrick as an afterthought. “Aiden told me you guys talked.”

Patrick’s eyes widen a fraction at the abrupt subject change and he picks up his glass of water, takes a small sip. “What did he say?”

“Not much really. Just that it’s better now?”

“It is.”

“Yeah?” Jonny asks, buoyed by seeing Patrick’s expression shift into something gentle and pleased.

“There’s a lot of baggage we both carry from our dad, and our dynamics, and the constant comparisons,” Patrick says quietly, like he doesn’t want anyone else to hear. He folds his hands together and flexes his fingers. “I think we just, I don’t know, we just weren’t leaning on each other in the ways we should’ve been, and maybe making things harder for each other when we didn’t need to. It’s complicated.”

Jonny cocks his head to the side, trying to mentally drag Patrick’s eyes up from where they’ve been fixated on the table. His scent is a mixture of emotions, almost impossible to pick out, but at the end of it all, Jonny gets regret, and he won’t have that.

“Well, except for our dad…” Patrick says, and the regret turns into dejection.

There are things Jonny can fix and things he can’t, but refuses to give up on. This is the latter.

“Patrick,” he says and tries to soften his voice as much as possible.

“What?”

He takes a breath and thinks for a minute about how best to phrase what he wants to say instead of just speaking from his chest, because while that tactic works in the locker room, it can be graceless and blunt, and Patrick deserves to be held carefully in these kinds of moments, always. 

“I don’t want to be disrespectful. I know you love your dad, and I know he loves you. And everyone has ups and downs with their parents, doesn’t mean they don’t care,” he says and pauses. He reaches across the table and slowly fits his fingers around Patrick’s wrist. It’s awkward in between the appetizer dishes, soup bowls, and glasses, but Jonny makes it work, holding on as best he can. “But your dad spends too much time looking at the two of you through hockey and not enough as a father to his sons.”

He wants to turn his hand and thread his fingers with Patrick’s, interlock and hold him even closer, but it’s not his place, and this is enough. That Patrick lets Jonny comfort him, even in this small way, is an offering he can’t be ungrateful for.

A long beat passes between them where neither of them talk, with the sounds of people chatting around them, silverware clanging, and waiters’ hurried footsteps filling the quiet.

Jonny’s waiting for Patrick to speak. He can tell Patrick’s working through his thoughts and he’s going to give him his time. While he’s waiting, Derek returns with their food, setting down platters around Jonny’s hand linked to Patrick’s in the middle of the table. Derek eyes them, his mouth making a little pout Jonny couldn’t give a fuck about. When he’s gone Jonny squeezes Patrick’s wrist lightly, just to let him know it’s okay, then he lets go so Patrick can dig into his food if he wants while he thinks.

Jonny’s on his third piece of California roll, mouth stuffed full of rice, avocado, crab, cucumber, and nori when Patrick finally clears his throat and says, “Do you remember that time we were on spring break our freshman year at Shattuck? My parents wanted to take us to visit my cousins in Pittsburgh and your parents were going up to the lake house for the week. We begged you to ask them to take us too.”

“I don’t recall it taking that much begging, but yes,” Jonny laughs. “And we spent pretty much every day out on the ice playing shinny until Mom had to drag us inside to eat. Then we’d go out again until it was too dark to see.”

Patrick smiles in a far off way like he’s reliving the memory. “And Aiden fell in love with the girl in the cabin at the end of the street. What was her name again?”

“Amelia.”

“That’s right! How’s she doing?”

Jonny picks up a few pieces of sushi and places them on Patrick’s plate to coax him into eating. “She got married last summer. Aiden will be heartbroken, I’m sure. Or maybe not now that he’s got Ivy.” He pushes the spicy mayo in his direction after, because Patrick loves that shit slathered all over everything.

“You’ve met Ivy?” Patrick asks, popping a bite of tempura shrimp into his mouth.

“Just in passing a few times.”

“What’d you think of her?”

“Sweet, kind, a little wary of me, maybe, I think,” Jonny says. He steals a tempura covered stick of asparagus. Would’ve probably tasted better with some of that spicy mayo, but Jonny and dairy have a love-hate relationship.

“You probably just did your alpha thing and intimidated her,” Patrick says. “She just needs to get used to you.”

There’s six more pieces of the two California rolls they ordered and a whole pile of tuna and salmon sashimi Patrick’s barely touched yet. Jonny’s about to fork a few more pieces of each onto his plate when he freezes, catching on to what Patrick just said.

“I’m intimidating?” he asks

Patrick snorts. “Like you don’t know.”

Jonny contemplates the idea for a second. “I guess I do. I don’t think about it much...off the ice.”

A chopstick gets pointed in his direction. “You’re just...very intense, as a human being, Tazer. It’s not big a deal.”

Jonny used to think that was the reason, or part of the reason. When they were kids, Jonny presented first and it wasn’t a surprise when he ended up an alpha. Everyone around him expected it, he expected it, no one said much of anything besides a token congratulations for passing a life milestone, and then they all moved on. And Jonny didn’t think much about it besides wondering what Patrick and Aiden would present as months later. Aiden seemed mostly disinterested by the whole process, but Jonny knew Patrick was hoping to be a beta. “Neutral ground,” he’d said to Jonny one night a week or so before his thirteenth birthday. “Then I can just focus on hockey and not worry about dynamics.”

And maybe if it had happened that way things would be different for Patrick now, maybe he wouldn’t have to deal with all of the prejudice and bigotry he does on and off the ice. There are times Jonny wishes he could take it away even if a small part of him still remembers what it was like to be a newly thirteen-year-old alpha just discovering what it meant to be living inside his dynamic, to know that his best friend was an omega and that they would fit so perfectly together if they wanted - it made him tremble and shake inside. The feeling has never quite left him, the way Patrick’s omega scent hits him like a goddamn asteroid, slamming into his chest and taking him over. Nothing before and nothing since had ever been as right and perfect as Patrick.

But then Patrick pulled away and withdrew into himself. At first Jonny thought it was because he was ashamed of himself, but he assured Jonny he was “fine”. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Patrick would tell him. “It’s not going to stop me from getting to the NHL.”

“I know it’s not,” Jonny had said, because that was the truest thing.

Patrick was even smaller for his age back then, but more determined than any other player he’d ever met and he’d often stay on the ice or practice his puck handling long after the other kids had given up, even Aiden, even Jonny. And often Jonny would sit in hallways or on the floor of locker rooms or bedrooms doing crunches or push-ups while Patrick stickhandled in little circles, flipping up pucks and working one puck around other pucks until his wrists hurt him.

He’s fierce and he’s strong, and he’s also an omega. Jonny thinks every part of him is unbelievable, a miracle. They fit together like nothing else in the entire world and still it doesn’t change the fact that Patrick doesn’t want him.

At first he thought it was about him being an alpha. They’re all told from a young age, through school and doctors, that all dynamics are worthwhile, that everyone has value. Then the real world steps in and says, no, actually, alphas are better. It’s mostly bullshit. Alphas are often treated better, like they’re inherently stronger, smarter, greater physically and intellectually, but it’s not the reality. There are positives and negatives to each dynamic. There are good and bad people everywhere. Genetics only ever tell half of the story and sometimes that story doesn’t end happily ever after.

It took Jonny years to accept that his alphaness was what turned Patrick off of him, but at least it was something he couldn’t change, and it was just a piece of him. That made it easier to swallow than the alternative. Until their first year in Chicago together when they were out at a bar one night after a particularly stellar win against the Predators, and Jonny saw an alpha around Jonny’s height and build walk up to Patrick and begin flirting. At the time he laughed it off, knowing the guy was barking up the wrong tree, but as the night progressed and they continued to sit off to the side and continue talking, he became less and less sure of his assumption. An hour later Patrick had left with the guy, and Jonny had felt like his entire stomach had dropped out of his body and all the way to the core of the earth.

It wasn’t Jonny being an alpha that Patrick didn’t want. It was just...it was Jonny.

He’s not proud of it now, but for months after that, Jonny found it difficult to even be in the same room with Patrick alone without feeling like someone was slowly dragging a knife down through the center of him. Eventually he gathered up the pieces of his wrecked heart and patched himself up, resolving to be the best friend to Patrick he possibly could be if Patrick still wanted him around. And he did, to Jonny’s initial shock. He seemed so happy that things were going back to normal between them, to have Jonny around again, it felt like a gift just to be in Patrick’s life. 

This is enough.

“Have I ever intimidated you?” Jonny asks, poking at a salmon sashimi piece until he can properly pick it up. He sets it on his plate and stares at it.

“Nope,” Patrick says, easy. 

“For real?”

“Not even once,” Patrick grins, cheerfully. “Not even a little bit.”

Jonny’s not sure what’s so amusing about that, but he’s glad for it. “Well, good.”

Patrick reaches over and trades Jonny’s sashimi for one of the California slices.

“That was my best vacation, you know?” he murmurs. “Us up at your parents’ lake house, you and me on the ice until our feet bled. I never wanted to go back. Especially not with all the Matt Smaby shit going on.”

Jesus. Jonny hasn’t heard that name in years and it still makes his hackles rise, his blood beginning to boil.

“Fuck Matt Smaby. Little pencil-dick weasel,” he spits. “You know he finally made it out of the AHL? Got called up this year to Tampa for 32 games, scored zero points, and got sent back down again.”

Patrick looks a little startled by Jonny’s harsh response. “I...did not know that.”

Another bite gets shoved into his mouth. He chews aggressively around his words. “It’s what he fucking deserves. You want more spicy mayo and some water?” He raises his hand for the nearest waiter, hopefully not Derek.

Patrick’s smile is slow to ease over his mouth and small, but it reaches up to his eyes. “Uh, yes, please. Thank you.”

Jonny finds himself smiling back. “I got you, Peeks.”

*

“Hey, quick question?” Aiden says when they’re biking in the workout room on Friday.

Jonny’s just about to reach his cool down and he’s thinking longingly of a shower and a restful nap. “Hit me.”

Aiden gets better situated on his own bike and starts pedaling casually, like he’s not really thinking about it. Across the gym Patrick and Sharpy are half-working on strength training and half-laughing about the prank Jonny overheard Sharpy telling Patrick he was planning for Duncs and Seabs. One of these days Seabs is going to drop Sharpy head first into a dumpster for all the shit he puts everyone through and Duncs (and definitely Jonny) isn’t going to stop him.

Still, it’s kept Jonny entertained to watch Sharpy explain every bit of his idea in a dramatic re-enactment that has Patrick giggling his ass off.

“Are you seeing anyone?” Aiden asks.

Jonny pulls his eyes away from Patrick. “What?”

Aiden waves his hand around like it’s obvious and Jonny’s a dumbass for not understanding the question. “As in dating anyone or fucking around with anyone or whatever?”

“No,” Jonny says.

“Like at all?” Aiden asks, peering at Jonny as Jonny breathes out through the last push of his uphill route. “Or is there someone on the side?”

“On the side?” Jonny says, confused. Where the fuck is this conversation going? He grabs at his water bottle and takes a quick drink.

“You know? Friends with benefits?”

“No,” Jonny says flatly.

“Just benefits?” Aiden says. He’s still watching Jonny, maybe a little too closely.

It’s not like they don’t ever talk about this type of stuff, but it usually doesn’t involve twenty questions. This? Is strange. “No, no one at the moment. Why?”

Skills walks in and joins Sharpy and Patrick by the weights, trying to get in on what’s so funny. This is what Sharpy lives for, people being interested in his theatrics so he can begin the whole show from the top and add an extra flare with the second round. Jonny likes seeing Patrick’s amusement linger even through the double matinee showing.

Aiden flicks Jonny in the arm until Jonny looks back at him. “Do you usually go for one dynamic over another?” 

“You didn’t answer my first question,” Jonny says and flicks him back, right on the forehead.

He earns a smack to his own forehead in return.

“You answer me first and then I’ll answer you,” Aiden laughs. He’s got an arm up in protective mode near his face, like he thinks Jonny might strike out of the blue at any moment. Jonny won’t, but he enjoys people living under the illusion that he might.

“Or I could just not answer at all,” he says simply and grins.

Aiden rolls his eyes. “Well, now you’re just being difficult.” He scrunches up his nose in exasperation. It’s an expression Jonny’s seen many times before. Aiden often uses his nose to show his emotions while Patrick will use his eyebrows and his mouth.

Ever since they were kids, one of Jonny’s favorite things to do was to catalogue the differences on Aiden and Patrick’s faces, in the way they would demonstrate and communicate their moods, thoughts, and feelings. Oftentimes they’d get written off as being the same because they looked similar and had matching movements, like a lot of twins, hell, like a lot of siblings. It gave people a license to be lazy and dismiss their existence. And maybe Jonny is a little more invested than the average person, but it never felt like a chore to notice how Patrick’s eyes are bluer than Aiden’s, his lashes a little longer, or how Aiden had a collection of freckles on the bridge of his nose. Aiden’s chin isn’t quite as square, but his jaw is wider and so are his shoulders and he’s always been a fraction taller than Patrick as well. While Patrick’s ears are smaller, his mouth fuller, and he has a tiny scar on his left cheek from when a puck busted his face open during a game against Culver Academy when they were at Shattuck. 

Their laughs sound the same, but only sometimes, when they’re amused about a joke, or Jonny is making a fool of himself. If they’re delighted, Patrick’s goes a little breathy and high, while Aiden’s will turn into a snort that emanates from the back of his throat. When they’re upset, Aiden's jaw will tighten, but Patrick’s eyes will turn distant and glassy. When they sing karaoke, Patrick will dance, while Aiden will howl into the mic until everyone’s ears bleed. They both squeeze their nose when they’re embarrassed, but when they’re anxious, Aiden tugs at his ear and Patrick twists his fingers, tugs at them until the knuckles crack. Patrick bites at his nails, and Aiden did too, until they came to UND and he made Jonny bully him into quitting.

Jonny could count on two hands the number of ways Patrick and Aiden are truly alike and an entire novel on the ways they are completely and utterly unique unto themselves. It might not be fair to expect everyone that knows them to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the Kanes like Jonny does, as he’s spent half of his life learning these precious, vital details, but they come in handy in moments like this one.

Jonny squints his eyes at Aiden as he searches Aiden's face, trying to pinpoint what his motive is here, as it doesn’t feel at all innocent. “What is this about?”

Aiden looks off to the side, a tell in its own way, and says, “I was thinking of setting Patty up. But I’m still pretty new around here and most of the people I know are just hockey people and I don’t think he’d be into that so I’m asking around. Any ideas?”

It feels like a joke at first, like Aiden is genuinely fucking with him, and he should laugh this off and move on. But Aiden isn’t smiling and Jonny’s brain is flashing an error sign in front of his eyes, and it’s tripping him up.

The fuck.

“How do you...uh,” he tries. He’s stopped pedalling on his bike at this point. Is just sitting there gripping the handle bars so hard his hands are starting to hurt. “I don’t - no - not really.”

“What about one of your exes?” Aiden asks, he’s watching Sharpy waving his arms around like a loon across the room. “Would they know anyone available?”

Jonny thought...well. He figured Aiden knew. About him. Or really about his feelings for Patrick. They’ve never explicitly talked about it, but Jonny figured he was obvious enough about it that Aiden must’ve picked up on it at some point and had enough empathy in his heart to just never make Jonny talk about it. Now he’s not so sure.

Does he not know or does he know and has decided Jonny isn’t good enough? Fuck. Enough. It’s irrelevant. Patrick already made up his mind a long time ago and that’s his decision and if his brother wants to set him up he can do that, and Jonny will...Jonny will accept it.

“Why would my exes know someone for Kaner?” he says finally, trying to sound placid. 

Aiden eyes him from his periphery and he’s not sure he pulled it off.

“Maybe they have the same taste?” Aiden shrugs. “Who knows?”

Jonny takes a deep breath and stands up from his bike. He picks his hand towel up from the ground and wipes his face and neck off roughly. “This is weird.”

“Any beta friends?”

NO. Jonny takes another deep breath, slow in, slow out. “No.”

“Alphas? Any big alphas? I think he likes them big,” Aiden asks, face completely blank and showing nothing.

Jonny picks up his water bottle next and has to put actual effort into not squeezing the goddamn life out of it. FUCK NO.

He clears his throat. “I have to go. I have a meeting with Q.”

Aiden gives him a confused look, the corner of his mouth rising. “Isn’t that at one?”

“Doesn’t hurt to be early,” Jonny says. He can feel his overheated cheeks turning red hot.

“It’s 12:23!” Aiden says, like Jonny can’t read a fucking clock. “So that’s a no on a recommendation?”

One more breath. No, two, three more breaths. He can do this, he will do this, it’s the right thing to do.

“I’ll think about it,” he says calmly.

Aiden stares at him for a beat. “Make me a list.”

Jonny’s fist squeezes his bottle until the top pops off. He’ll buy a new one. Fuck that water bottle, he doesn’t need it anyway. He turns and starts walking out of the gym. 

“See you tomorrow!” Aiden calls and if Jonny weren’t paying better attention, he’d think Aiden almost sounds gleeful.

*

Jonny does his best to forget the conversation with Aiden in the lead up to the beginning of playoffs, but no matter how hard he tries, it feels like a splinter that’s dug deep into his skin and he can’t pick out. By the time the team is flying out to Vancouver to begin to play the first two games of the series against the Canucks, he’s in a foul mood. It only worsens during Game One when the Hawks get completely shut out and Jonny doesn’t even manage to get one shot off on goal.

He knows he needs to stay cool and collected, not only for his own game, but for the locker room as well, but the splinter turns into a prickling frustration crawling up his back that he can’t shake.

On their off day, he gathers a bunch of the boys to take them out for a casual dinner and to catch a few drinks at a bar, early enough they’ll be back in bed at a reasonable hour, but not so early they can’t enjoy the evening. It’s important everyone stays as loose as possible in the lead up to Game Two. If they hyper focus on trying to be better every second they’re off the ice, they’ll just wind up skating out tomorrow night exhausted and tense as fuck. Jonny can’t have that.

And even if he isn’t quite able to listen to his own advice, he wants the team to stay in a positive and happy headspace as much as possible throughout the series.

The team eats a nice steak dinner before heading over to the Devil’s Elbow, where Jonny orders a light beer and keeps an eye out on the rest of the boys to make sure no one over does it. As it’s nearing eight and he’s relaxed enough to sit with Aiden and talk nonsense, he watches a few of the Canucks players walk in with their girlfriends and head to the bar. It’s not a big deal, to be honest. Jonny isn’t worried.

This is a popular bar in Vancouver and it's the Canucks’ home turf. Run-ins are bound to happen throughout a series. He’s dealt with this kind of thing before and as long as everyone on both sides manages to stay civil then they can all co-exist and finish out the night in peace.

Except then Jonny sees Ryan Kesler walk up to Patrick, who’s been waiting at the bar for the last handful of minutes with Sharpy to order another drink, then watches Ryan place his arm around Patrick’s shoulders. And just like that everything else in the bar fades out to a blur, his vision narrowing in on the way Patrick initially stiffens and begins to move away. He can’t go far, hemmed in like he is with Kesler behind him, Sharpy on one side and a bar stool on the other.

Kesler has that smarmy look on his face, the kind Jonny catches him giving to Patrick whenever they’re on the ice together. It’s not the same expression Jonny is given when he goes up against Kesler to take face-offs, or when they’re shoving at each other against the boards and fighting for the puck. What Kesler shows Jonny is the kind of mocking and toying look he’s come to expect from idiots on the ice who think they can try to wind him up and throw him off his game. 

The operative word there is: try. They do not succeed.

But that isn’t how Kesler's staring at Patrick, which is altogether more predatory and purposeful than Jonny is remotely comfortable with. He knows Patrick can take care of himself, and he knows Sharpy would never let anything happen, and he knows they’re all adults and this is just humans being social in a bar, on a Friday night. Jonny knows all of that.

And yet the longer he sits there and watches Kesler lean in further and further into Patrick’s space, making Patrick laugh, and acting like he has any right to be there, the more Jonny thinks about walking over and wringing his dumb fucking neck. It’s about that time he realizes he needs to leave, for his own well being and others’.

“Seabs,” he calls and waits until Seabs disengages from his conversation with Hossa and Duncs to glance over at him. “Make sure everyone gets back to the hotel okay? I’m taking off.”

Seabs shoots him a little salute.

“You okay, J-Bone?” Aiden cuts in. 

Jonny blinks over at Aiden, having momentarily forgotten he wasn’t sitting alone, as absorbed as he was watching the action over by the bar. He clears his throat and grins, the nickname the first thing to cheer him up all day. “Yeah, I’m good,” he lies. “Keep an eye out on…”

“On?” Aiden asks.

“On the enemy,” Jonny says, nodding toward Kesler and forcing his tone to stay light and joking.

Aiden doesn’t seem to buy it, but he says, “Sure,” anyway and Jonny goes, glad to escape the musty heat of the overfilled bar and all of the people inside. 

He catches a cab back to the hotel and immediately strips off all of his clothes once he’s in his shared room. The beds are newly made and fresh, and Jonny rips the covers back and plops down on the mattress, desperately trying to kick the urge to punch a wall or find someone to fuck his frustrations out on. There isn’t time for either and it wouldn’t solve anything if there were. What Jonny wants, what he’s always wanted, is out of reach, and he can keep the ache of it at bay most of the time by focusing on the things he can have: hockey, success, general contentment with himself and his life.

And then there are moments like this, where all he can do to get by is let himself completely sink into a memory.

One of his favorite and most reliable memories is from his first week in Chicago, right before training camp in 2007. The Hawks had put Patrick and him up in the Waldorf Astoria and given them money to go sightsee and become acquainted with the city they were both, hopefully, going to be big names in for a long time. Jonny hadn’t seen Patrick for six months or more at that point, not with them finishing out their separate seasons, Patrick’s draft, and visiting family over the summer. And when Jonny saw Patrick walk through his door after he’d arrived in town only hours before, a strong gust of wind could’ve knocked him on his ass with just how beautiful Patrick looked as his eyes fell on Jonny and lit up.

They’d spent the rest of that week going to baseball games, visiting museums, taking guided bus tours, and trying out many of the best restaurants the city had to offer. It’d felt like one insanely long date and Jonny had to stop himself from wanting to press Patrick up against a wall at the end of every night, shove his leg between Patrick’s thighs and tangle his fingers in Patrick’s soft curls. It was the best kind of torture.

One night Patrick crawled onto Jonny’s bed and they watched some movie Jonny can’t remember now, but it wasn’t important. All that mattered was Patrick curled into Jonny’s side and gently patting Jonny’s abs every time he wanted to point out something funny in the movie to Jonny. It was the kind of snapshot moment that Jonny knew was precious and needed to be kept safe and locked away. At the time he thought he would never be happier than in that instant. And then he won the Stanley Cup with Patrick. And then he woke up with Patrick in his arms, with Patrick calling him _Alpha_.

Jonny’s been haunted by it ever since.

Just the thought of it makes Jonny’s dick twitch inside his briefs, throbbing with the need to be touched. He slides a careless hand down the base of it and stops when he reaches the head, squeezing it once.

Patrick’s bedroom smelled warm and sweet, so totally of his being that it made Jonny’s entire chest flutter to be inside of it. When Patrick let Jonny onto his bed, it’d taken a monumental amount of strength to keep himself together when all he wanted to do was roll Patrick to his back, press him into the mattress and scent every inch of him, touch him from his head to his toes, cover him in Jonny’s own scent and let them mingle and converge and form into something new.

He dips his fingers underneath the waistband of his briefs, now thinking about how he’d sat and watched that entire movie with Patrick pressed to his side and he’d been as hard as a goddamn steel rod. He’d also been ashamed of himself for his inability to spend time with his best friend and not keep it platonic. It’s why he doesn’t dig up these memories often; it’d be too easy to let himself believe this is okay, that it’s normal to hang onto a hopeless want. It’s not.

After this is over, he’ll fold it up again, set it carefully within its fireproof safe and lock it up.

For now Jonny grips a hand around his bare cock and sets up a slow, soothing rhythm of sliding his fingers from root to tip and then back up. When he gets irritated at the constriction, he shoves his briefs down his hips, then his thighs, and kicks them over the side of the bed where they land in front of the window. Now free to move about as he wants, he wets his index and middle finger at the head of his cock where he’s leaking and swirls it around, gathers more up, does it once again until he shudders and is dragged back to Patrick, back to that morning in his room.

He woke up plastered to Patrick’s back, covering him just like he’d always wanted, and it almost hadn’t felt real, to be close to him like that, his scent seeping like honey into Jonny’s skin. He was still hard, had been hard from the moment he fell asleep and probably the entire time in between. It was less of a surprise to wake up with his erection still present than it was to have that erection pressed up against Patrick’s ass, to have Patrick slowly grinding back against him like he...wanted Jonny.

And when Jonny pressed his hips forward, mindlessly lining up his cock with the crease of Patrick’s ass and Patrick let out the breathiest, lightest moan, Jonny felt his entire body jolt forward involuntarily like he was about to blow his load. He hadn’t been that close to coming that quickly since he was fourteen and popped his knot for the first time after play-wrestling with Patrick in his parents’ basement one weekend he’d stayed over.

It sets Jonny aflame just thinking about it, and as he drags his fist down his thickening length, he can feel around the base where his knot is beginning to form and swell, blood hot to the touch and so sensitive Jonny grunts out a harsh, guttural moan. _Fuck_.

Everything is starting to mesh together as his orgasm begins to build low in his belly, more precome dripping from the tip of his cock and sliding down the head and onto his moving fist. At first it’s a flash of Patrick moving his ass back against Jonny, undulating his hips in a way that made it impossible for Jonny not to imagine how amazing it’d be to drag Patrick’s pajamas pants down, pulls his cheeks apart and slide inside of his perfect heat, how it’d totally wreck Jonny to have half a chance to make Patrick fall apart in his arms, how if they tied he’d never recover. Just the thought is enough to undo him.

He’s got one hand dragging up and down his shaft, barely brushing the head of his cock, and his other hand grazing over his swollen knot now, his eyes close as his breath comes out in pants and another flash hits him. This one is of Patrick begging Jonny to stay, the smell of his slick so thick throughout the room Jonny’s heart was beating half out of his chest with the way he was holding himself back, every cell in his body screaming at him to claim Patrick, to take him and mark him and mate him. _He’s yours_ , the little voice in the back of his head was saying, _he’s your omega, you’ll be so good for him, you’ll take care of him and protect him, no one will ever do it better than you_. 

It wasn't rational, but Jonny’s brain didn’t give a single, solitary fuck in that instant. He just wanted to bond with his omega and keep him, love him, in whatever way Patrick would allow him.

“ _Alpha_ ,” Patrick had said. Patrick called him alpha. He pressed his face to Jonny’s chest and tried to wrap around him like he wanted Jonny to stay, like he wanted _Jonny_.

The first sign Jonny knows he’s about to come is the way his entire cock, knot and all, grows just that fraction thicker, and then he’s shouting out a quick curse as he goes off, spurting all the way up his torso and over his belly, covering himself in thick white ropes until he’s shivering. He collapses fully onto the bed - Patrick’s big, beautiful eyes, and pleading face still imprinted on the back of his eyelids like a kiss.

For several long minutes he just lies there, staring up at the plain ceiling and the shadows from the light of the hotel lamp. He tries to breathe and not let the guilt crash through his temporarily calm thoughts, but it’s no use. This is the downside of letting himself think of Patrick as he gets off and he knows the cycle by now, he should be used to it, but it still stabs right through him every goddamn time.

He sits up to try to avoid the intruding thoughts a few minutes longer, picking up the boxer briefs he dropped on the floor and using them to wipe himself off. After, he stands, shoving the dirty underwear into a corner of his bag, and traipses to the bathroom to clean himself up a little better. In the bathroom he uses a warm, wet washcloth and some soap to get rid of the rest of the mess and then brushes his teeth, trying not to look in the mirror and see the flushed redness of his cheeks or the disheveled disarray of his hair.

He shouldn’t look this satisfied getting off on his own. He shouldn’t be this satisfied getting off on his own just thinking of Patrick. It’s better than some of the sex he’s had with other people, and Jonny doesn’t know what to do with that truth. 

It’s impossible to not wonder if that was his only chance to be with Patrick and he blew it.

No.

It wasn’t a real chance. It wasn’t really Patrick. It was his heat talking for him, taking control and trying to push him to mate with the nearest alpha able to impregnate him. It’s hormones wanting two fertile people to procreate, that’s all. And Jonny did the right thing fighting against it even if it felt like he was destroying himself in the process of telling Patrick no and pulling away. Even if Patrick's shattered look will sit in the hollow center of Jonny’s heart for as long as he lives.

Cupping a handful of water Jonny uses it to swish his mouth clean of toothpaste. He spits it angrily back into the sink and lets his eyes fall closed, trying to breathe.

He can’t keep doing this every time shit gets hard. He can’t run to the past and wish it’ll fill the hole in his heart when really he’s just digging another that’ll leave him as empty as when he started. He has to move on.

On the other side of the bathroom door, Jonny can hear someone come into the room. By the sounds of the soft footsteps, it’s Patrick. Earlier than Jonny was expecting by the way Patrick looked preoccupied at the bar, and...shit. Jonny needs to stop doing this too. It’s not his place. Patrick is not his.

Patrick will never be his.

He has to let go.

Jonny presses his palms to the counter in front of him and takes a long breath, counting to ten and out to one. He repeats the process until he feels less like putting his fist through the mirror and more like just going to sleep.

By the time he opens the door of the bathroom, the rest of the room is dark and Patrick is presumably in bed. Jonny considers the towel he wrapped around his waist and then lets it drop to the floor, not caring as he walks past Patrick curled up in his own bed and to his own, completely naked. He slides under the covers and stares up at the ceiling again, wanting to say something to Patrick, maybe just call out his name to hear the comforting sound of it. He doesn’t.

As he’s finally drifting off to sleep, he thinks he sees Patrick get out of bed and walk to the bathroom. He might hear the shower turn on, but he can’t be sure. Two minutes later everything is black.

*

After the Hawks miss out on advancing to round two of the playoffs by losing to the Canucks in a crushing OT loss, Jonny spends a week moping around his condo until he receives a call from Aiden.

“Stop being pissy and come help me move,” he says.

“You’re moving?” Jonny says. Nobody tells him anything.

“As of this week, yes. I signed the papers yesterday.”

“To where?”

“Your old building,” Aiden explains. “The Regatta. They had an opening and I remember really liking it there when I got a chance to visit you, so I grabbed it. Meet us over there tomorrow after five.”

“Us?” Jonny asks.

The group in question turns out to be Aiden, Ivy, and Patrick, who are waiting for him in the parking garage of Aiden’s building. Once he parks, he’s directed to Patrick’s Hummer and Aiden’s Caddy where there are piles of clothes and assorted boxes of all sizes, some half-opened and others taped up, stacked in the back of each vehicle. Aiden instructs Jonny and Patrick as to which boxes to grab first, while grabbing one for himself and telling Ivy she doesn’t have to take anything. She rolls her eyes and picks up a larger box that dwarfs her small frame. When Aiden looks on, impressed, she smiles smugly and walks with the rest of the group to the elevators.

It takes ten trips up and down to clear out all of Aiden’s shit and by the time they’re heading down for the last few items, Jonny’s sweating in several places that aren’t polite or sexy.

“Couldn’t you have hired a moving service?” Jonny grumbles, grabbing the last of the two biggest boxes and stacking them on top of each other. He’s not sure what is inside of them but it feels distinctly like bricks and maybe chunks of metal, possibly a ship anchor. 

“I did,” Aiden says, laughing. “They’re the ones who brought all my shit over from the storage locker two days ago.”

Jonny shoots him a displeased look. “And you stopped there? Couldn’t have them box stuff up at Kaner’s place?”

“It’s not that much stuff, quit bitching.”

“I’m the one carrying most of it!” Jonny sighs, and it’s really only half for show, his dramatics causing Patrick to roll his eyes and giggle as he walks beside Jonny, carrying a handful of Aiden’s sticks and one of Aiden’s older gear bags slung over his shoulder.

They hit the elevator, again, and have to wait for it to get to the basement from where it’s currently sitting on the fourteenth floor.

Aiden slaps Jonny on the back placatingly. “That’s because you’re the strongest, pal.”

“Well, at least you admit it.” Jonny nods, and glances over at Patrick to flash him a beaming, proud smile. 

Patrick raises his eyebrows as if to say, _Really?_ and _God, you’re a goober_ , but the corner of his mouth still slants upward. Jonny counts it as a win.

“Do you own any other shirts than plaid button downs and graphic tees?” Ivy asks, as she looks through the opened box in her arms. It’s a haphazard pile of shirts in an array of too many colors, but Jonny can’t judge as he has an affinity for his own brand of outrageous T-shirts.

“Nope,” Aiden says gleefully.

Ivy exhales, her expression long-suffering. “I need to take you shopping.”

Aiden’s eyes shoot from Ivy to Jonny to Patrick, then back to Ivy, confused. “Why? Is...is my style bad?” He stares down at the ripped jeans, Buffalo Bills T- shirt and blue plaid over shirt he’s currently wearing, inspecting it.

Ivy shrugs, coy. “You could learn a thing or two from your brother, I’m just sayin’.”

The way Aiden’s mouth drops open and his brow immediately knits, an outsider might think nothing has offended Aiden more in his entire life. The shock is entertaining enough Jonny can’t help but to look over at Patrick to see his reaction. His eyes connect with Jonny and they laugh as Aiden huffs beside them.

“All he wears is gray and black!” Aiden says, frowning.

“That’s Gucci and Prada gray and black, thank you very much,” Patrick says primly. 

Ivy gestures to Patrick with her free hand in agreement. “Exactly.”

The elevator dings, coming to a stop on Aiden’s floor, and they all file out, Jonny waiting for Ivy, Patrick, and then Aiden to step off first, and following them down the hall to Aiden’s condo. Once Aiden unlocks the door, they step inside and Jonny walks over to a huge pile of boxes, setting the ones in his arms beside the others. He wants to ask Aiden if all of these boxes are full of stuff intended for the living room, but frankly, he thinks they aren’t, and the prospect of moving them again is so exhausting he’s going to just keep his trap shut.

“Jon, throw me a bone, man,” Aiden begs. 

Jonny looks over at Patrick again, taking in his fitted black brand name sweatpants and his long sleeve gray Henley. His eyes trail up and down twice, without him really meaning to, until he can see Patrick fidget a little under his gaze and shove his hands into his pockets.

Aiden pouts. “Jon, c’mon.”

“What?” Jonny says, momentarily forgetting what they’re all talking about. “I think Kaner looks good.” His eyes connect briefly with Patrick’s. “I like your new hat, by the way.” Then he’s turning back to Aiden. “Are these boxes all staying here?”

From the corner of his eye Jonny catches two distinct images: Patrick trying to hide his smile and Ivy watching Patrick ducking his head down.

“You’re zero help!” Aiden groans, sighing like he’s been deeply persecuted all of his life. Jonny knows exactly what’s going through his head: The pain! The struggle! Will it never end? Aiden knows only betrayal!

While Patrick’s fetching everyone water bottles from the fridge, Ivy looks at the mountain of boxes skeptically. Jonny can tell what she’s thinking because he’s thinking it, too. And he doesn’t want to do it, his back certainly doesn’t want him to do it, but he can’t help himself from offering to help when one of the Kane boys needs him. It’s like it was written into his goddamn DNA or something.

“So you don’t want me to help you move these boxes to the right rooms?” Jonny asks, after a minute of watching Aiden pout.

“Um,” Aiden says and has the good sense to at least appear a little guilty. 

“That’s what I thought,” Jonny grumbles and goes to the boxes, picking a few up. He asks where to be directed and for the following thirty minutes moves most of them, with minimal help from Aiden, to each specific room they’re labeled for.

When they’re officially done, he finds Patrick and Ivy sitting in the dining room chatting, drinking their water and laughing over how Aiden’s furniture choices match his clothing choices, i.e., a lot of blue stripes and beige and zero style.

“Water please,” Jonny breathes when he walks in the room, holding his hand up. Patrick throws him a perspiring bottle and Jonny catches it in mid-air. He holds it up to his heated face and lets the coolness of it seep into his cheeks for a minute before he breaks the seal, uncaps it, and downs the whole thing in one go. When he’s done, he sets it on the nearest empty surface and pulls the bottom of his shirt up and wipes away the sweat on his forehead and across his brow. 

The chilled air feels nice on his bare torso too and he briefly considers stripping his entire shirt off to cool down, but stops himself, reconsidering as he remembers Ivy is close by and she probably wouldn’t appreciate him walking around half-naked. Forehead mostly dried now, he drops his shirt and looks up to see both Patrick and Ivy staring at him from across the room, their eyes a little wide.

Does he smell? Should he ask to borrow a shirt? Jonny tugs at the collar to smell and it’s not great, but it could definitely be worse

“What?” he asks, perplexed.

They both blink at him like two shocked guppies.

“You’re ridiculous,” Patrick says. When he looks over at Ivy, she makes a face at him and they both crack up laughing. Jonny doesn’t get the joke.

“So dinner’s on me for all of the heavy lifting today,” Aiden says as he joins the group. “Thank you all.” He leans down and kisses Ivy’s temple. “What are you in the mood for?”

Jonny walks around the other side of the table and pulls out a seat beside Patrick, plopping down with a long exhale. He’s going to be stiff everywhere tomorrow. “I’m up for whatever. Ivy, you have any preferences?”

“Me?” she asks, touching her own sternum like she didn’t expect to be included in the conversation. Jonny nods with a grin and she looks over at Aiden, then Patrick. “Uh, sure. There’s this pizza place a couple blocks away from here I really like.”

“Do they have gluten free options?” Patrick says.

Jonny winks at him.

Ivy nods. “They do! Really good ones too, actually. My grandmama has celiac so I have to vet restaurants for her sometimes. Do you have it too?”

“Not me,” Patrick says. “Jonny.”

Something shifts in Ivy’s expression and subtly softens, the skin around her eyes smoothing out. “Oh! Well, they have a gluten free pizza with any toppings you’d want, also a crustless option that I think has sausage as a base, so if you’re not vegetarian that’s another alternative.”

“Thanks,” Jonny says warmly. “Sounds good to me.”

Aiden pulls out his phone. “Takeout?”

They all nod in agreement and Aiden makes a quick note of what everyone wants before calling in the order. While they’re waiting for the pizza to arrive, Aiden drags Ivy around the apartment for a quick tour, but not before ordering Jonny and Patrick to walk down the street to the CVS to pick up paper plates, utensils, and beverages.

“Five bucks they’re fucking while we’re gone,” Jonny says while the two of them walk back to Aiden's building, arms full of bags.

Patrick's face turns horrified as he fake gags. “Disgusting. Don’t tell me that shit.”

Jonny laughs. “You know it’s true.”

“I know no such thing, nor do I want to.” Patrick’s lips twist in distaste. “How do _you_ know?”

“If I were moving into a new place, with a new boyfriend...or girlfriend, I’d want to christen the place too.”

They come to the front entrance of Aiden’s building and wait to be let in by the doorman. Once they’re inside the elevator, alone again, Patrick shakes his head. “I mean, maybe. But we were only gone like twenty minutes and if that’s all Ivy gets I feel bad for her.”

Jonny barks out a laugh. “I’m telling him you said that,” he lies just to watch Patrick’s eyes flare and his mouth drop open.

“You’re so full of shit. You wouldn’t dare,” Patrick says, a smile breaking across his face even as the tips of his ears go bright red.

“You don’t think so?” Jonny asks, leaning in until their arms brush.

“No, I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because you wouldn’t do that to Ivy,” Patrick says, licking his lips.

Jonny hums, staring down at Patrick for a few beats, their eyes locked. When they get each other going like this, it’s always difficult to disengage instead of ramping it up further, pushing a little harder. At fourteen, Jonny would dig his feet in until he and Patrick would either end up tumbling together on the floor playing around or stomping away from each other after the teasing turned into bickering turned into arguing. He was never quite sure how or why the mood would shift so quickly, how to slow it or calm it down. And even if he’s better at gauging how to navigate these moments as an adult than he was as a kid, he still finds himself tripping into them with the same stupidly graceless abandon as he did back then, hoping against hope that they’ll end not with Patrick slipping away, but with him spinning into Jonny.

The elevator dings and the doors open. They’re still staring at each other as someone walks onto the elevator and Jonny watches as Patrick’s body becomes aware of another person in their space a second before his brain does, his big blue eyes flickering away, his smile fading, and then his torso shifting. He steps around the stranger and Jonny nods at them, following behind Patrick quietly until they get to Aiden’s door.

“Should we knock?” he asks Jonny and then snorts at his own question, like hearing it out loud makes him decide it sounds stupid, before turning the doorknob. 

It’s not locked and they walk in to find Ivy and Aiden sitting in the living room, on the couch, and whispering to each other as they giggle. Aiden’s hair in particular looks a little more disheveled than when they left, and Jonny shoots Patrick a look when he sees that Patrick’s noticed it, too.

They share another glance, Patrick rolling his eyes and going to put the beverages away in the refrigerator. Aiden tries to rope Jonny into helping him set up his Xbox, even though Jonny knows jackshit about setting up game consoles, when luckily the pizza arrives and they break to eat. 

Ivy offers to help set out the paper plates, napkins, and glasses while Patrick grabs drinks and Jonny sets the pizzas on the table. Once they’re all settled in their seats Aiden and Patrick begin picking the pepperoni and mushrooms off their respective pizzas. Aiden makes a little pile of all of the toppings on a separate paper plate, one pile for each, and when he’s done he breaks those piles into two. Patrick takes half of the pepperoni pile to put on his sausage pizza, Aiden takes half of the mushrooms to put on his pineapple pizza, and Jonny takes the remaining half piles of pepperoni and mushroom to put on his chicken and spinach gluten free pizza. After that’s settled and they start to dig in and eat, Jonny notices Ivy watching their ritual with the most amused and tickled expression he’s maybe ever seen.

“What?” Aiden asks, smiling, but he seems to already know where the conversation is headed.

“Do you guys always do this?” Ivy asks.

“Not always,” Patrick says. 

“Not since we were kids probably,” Aiden adds. “It was our Friday pizza tradition after games. We usually played up in Jon’s neighborhood. And it was too long of a drive after so sometimes we’d stay over at the Toews’ for the weekend, especially if we had a Saturday game too. Jon’s parents would order us pizza. But because we ate so much we had to share. And since we all like different toppings we figured out a way to make it work.”

“It almost doesn’t taste as good anymore if I can’t peel off mushrooms first,” Patrick says.

Ivy’s smile brightens. “Does anyone like green olives?”

“You wanna get in on this?” Aiden asks, delighted.

“Hell yeah,” Jonny says. “I love me some olives. You want to trade for some pepperoni?”

“Mushrooms?” Ivy asks.

And that’s how the piles turn from halves to thirds.

They eat and talk about plans for the summer. Ivy has more schooling to wrap up but Aiden discusses taking her on a vacation as soon as she gets a break, while Patrick’s excited to get to the links and start golfing. Jonny will join him on a few of those trips, at least, until eventually Patrick will exhaust even Jonny’s considerable love of golf. Then Patrick will probably go home to Buffalo for a few weeks while Jonny goes off to Winnipeg and wherever during the remainder of the summer, and they won’t see each other again until August. It’s the best and worst part of the year for Jonny.

The best because Jonny can finally live his life without thinking of Patrick every five seconds, thoughts always half-taken up with wondering what he’s doing and who he’s with, of when Jonny will see him again. The worst because Jonny aches every second with the distance that separates them. Doesn’t matter how far Patrick is from him, down the road or across the continent, it never feels right.

Aiden suggests poker after they finish with their pizza and stow the leftovers away, as there’s no cable or internet to entertain them otherwise. He finds a dusty pack of cards in a box of miscellaneous belongings that includes a notepad, a box of tacks, a half-empty bag of batteries, and several loose pens. They play poker for a half-hour, using the tacks as bargaining chips, until they all quickly realize Ivy is a bit of a card shark and has over ninety percent of the tacks in her possession after seven hands.

Patrick proposes Pictionary as the follow-up and such an evil gleam settles in Aiden’s eyes, matched only by Patrick’s wicked grin, that Jonny can’t help the way he chokes on his own spit.

“You wanna be my partner?” Ivy asks Aiden.

Aiden kisses her gently, tucks a single loose braid behind her ear, and lays a soft smack on her cheek. “Not tonight, babe. Kane bros all the way.”

“That’s cheating,” Jonny says, because it is.

“It’s not cheating,” Patrick says, giving Jonny a very serious look as he tries to bite back down on his grin. “We follow the rules.”

Jonny shakes his head. “Only technically.”

Meanwhile Ivy’s been looking between all of them, assessing the situation with her keen eye and clearly detecting something in the air is afoot. She leans on her elbows on the table, getting a little closer to Jonny, and says conspiratorially, “Why do I feel like I just got conned?”

Jonny leans in as well. “Because you did,” he whispers.

They pass out pens and find a mostly empty box to hook the notepad onto so that everyone can see, and then Aiden takes his first turn. It’s not clear exactly what he’s drawing, even though his category is sports, but there’s a few squiggles at the bottom and five straight lines at the top of the page, two darker than the rest.

“Michael Jordan,” Patrick calls, five seconds into their thirty second turn.

“Yes!” Aiden shouts and they high-five.

“What?!” Ivy says, confused. She looks at Jonny. “That wasn’t even a drawing of anything? I - I’m?”

“Oh, they’re just getting started,” Jonny explains. “It only makes less sense from here on out.”

Ivy’s brow knits, her expression bewildered like she’s not sure she believes Jonny, but after ten more turns between the two groups, where Jonny and Ivy struggle to guess the answers for the movie Titanic and the band The Rolling Stones while Patrick and Aiden manage to successfully get all of their words right with less and less coherent drawings until finally Patrick predicts Antonio Banderas with one straight line down the middle of the page, she clearly catches on.

“Oh come on!” Ivy says, smacking her hands on the table.

Aiden and Patrick start howling.

“How?” she asks. “They have to be cheating.”

Jonny folds his arms over his chest, entertained. “It used to drive me crazy when we were younger. I couldn’t figure out how they did it and they’d never tell. One of their twin things we just can’t understand, I think.” He watches them whispering to each other, probably planning how to win the next round with their weird psychic drawings.

“You really love them,” Ivy says, her eyes searching. She’s been doing that on and off all night, when she thinks Jonny isn’t looking, sometimes when she knows he is, even when he’s just watching Patrick. He doesn’t know what she’s seeing, what information she’s gathering, but she's warmed to him significantly since their first meeting and he’s glad for it.

“They’re my family,” Jonny says, looking over fondly at Patrick and Aiden huddled together at the other end of the table.

He feels himself smile and sees it reflected back at him through Ivy.

At the end of the evening, as Jonny and Patrick are getting ready to leave, Jonny pulls Aiden aside and gives him a quick hug. “I’m glad you and Patrick are better,” he says low, just so the two of them can hear.

Aiden pats Jonny on the back and gives his arm a quick squeeze. “Me too. I missed him. I missed this.”

Jonny knows what he means. It feels like they’re all finally coming home.

*

The Thursday before Jonny’s birthday, Patrick invites him over to hang out and go to dinner. There’s a team outing scheduled for Friday that they’ll all attend, where the plan is to hit up Morton’s and then Rockit or The Pony Inn. But that’s separate, and while Jonny will never tell the boys this as he does love their company and has fun being out with them - they can’t compete with his one-on-one time with Patrick. Never could, never will.

“Where do you feel like going for dinner?” Patrick asks.

They’ve been fucking around playing Call of Duty: Black Ops since Jonny arrived over an hour ago, even though Jonny sucks ass at this game and keeps losing. It’s not his fault his avatar keeps walking into corners and getting stuck. The damn controllers aren’t exactly intuitive. Why do people play this garbage anyway?

“You didn’t make reservations?” Jonny says. He needs to get his guy up on the roof of this building but navigating the stairs is tricky, and he can hear Patrick snickering quietly beside him.

“I don’t need reservations,” Patrick says. “I just need my name and my face.”

He wins the round they’re playing by successfully killing all of the other operatives, or maybe getting to the right destination first? Jonny still isn’t altogether sure what the objective is or why anyone thinks this is fun. He misses Nintendo. 

Next to him, Patrick wiggles a little in his seat and fist bumps in the air, proud of his win even if it wasn’t exactly a fair fight. Jonny tosses his controller onto the coffee table in front of him and turns to Patrick.

“It’s a pretty good face, I’ll give you that,” he says and watches the way Patrick’s smug smile melts into a soft apostrophe at the corner of his mouth, his eyes downcast. “The name on the other hand…”

“Fuck off,” Patrick laughs, smacking Jonny on the thigh. “My name is memorable. Do you want steak?”

“Don’t I always?”

Patrick sets his own controller down more gently than Jonny did his and picks up the TV remote, switching it to NBC's pregame show for the Orlando Magic vs. the Atlanta Hawks. He turns down the volume and then looks at Jonny again; the tips of ears are a rosy pink. “And after? You want to go out? We could catch that new Jake Gyllenhaal movie. Have you seen Inception yet? Jess wouldn’t stop raving about it.”

Jonny wants to do all of it, but he thinks just saying a flat out, ‘Yes,’ is probably not the answer Patrick is angling for. “Last movie I saw was that thing you had me watch on the plane back in March.”

Patrick’s brow knits as he thinks, scanning that vast memory of his and all of the information it holds within. “Watchmen?”

“Yeah,” Jonny says, shrugging. “Sure.” He doesn’t really remember what it was called or what it was even about besides the fact that it had a glowing naked blue man in it, that it was set in the 80’s, and that Patrick spent most of the movie with his leg pressed against Jonny’s in their row of two seats. For weeks before Patrick kept mentioning that Jonny should watch it, and Jonny was tired of seeing Patrick caught up in the same ten minutes of game tape he’d been reviewing for the last hour. So he’d put it on, hoping to lure Patrick away, and after about five minutes of pretending to watch his iPad while his eyes kept drifting to Jonny’s laptop, Jonny had given him one of his earbuds to share so they could finish the rest of it together.

There’s another distinct snicker and then the sound of laughter being stifled as Patrick shakes his head. “We gotta broaden your horizons, Tazer. Two new movies in a year? Clearly I have to get you out more.”

“Maybe you do,” Jonny says, because it’s true and it’s his birthday, almost, and today he’s going to say what he means.

Patrick blinks at him, startled for a second, like he wasn’t prepared for that answer. And then his phone starts buzzing. “We should - ” he says, then pauses and pulls it out of his pocket. “Hold on, it’s Aiden.”

Jonny watches him answer it and go through the motions of greeting his brother before he says, “I’m kind of busy right now. Just reschedule. Next week or something. I can’t right now. Because I can’t. Yes. With Jonny. Are you serious? There’s no other time? Tomorrow morning?” Patrick's face is growing progressively less and less relaxed as the conversation continues, the skin around his eyes and mouth tightening, his brow furrowing, his lips pursing. He blows out a long breath and finally says, “Fine. Okay, okay, for like twenty minutes. And then we’re leaving. Do you hear me? Aiden. I’m serious. Yeah, see you soon.”

He looks remorsefully at Jonny after he closes his phone and shoves it back into his pocket.

“What was that all about?” Jonny says, knocking his knee into Patrick’s to clear the frustration from his eyes.

“Apparently a friend of Aiden’s from UND is in town and he really wants to meet me and Aiden promised without talking to me first. I’m sorry. It’ll only take a little bit and then no other interruptions for the rest of the night.”

There’s a slowly dawning dread creeping up over Jonny’s shoulders. Surely it can’t be who he thinks it is; the chances of that are too low.

“Who’s the friend?” he asks.

Patrick hums like he’s already forgotten the name and is trying to quickly drag it up again. “Some guy named Henry Torres. Do you know him?”

Like a bucket of ice water dropped directly over his head. That’s the feeling Jonny’s currently experiencing.

Fuck. Fuck goddamit horseshit son of a bitch fuck. _Fuck!_

Jonny inhales once, exhales out slowly. “Yes.”

“Oh,” Patrick says, surprised, eyebrows rising. “Were you friends?”

“No. Not exactly.” It’s difficult to keep his voice in monotone and his expression neutral when what he’d really like to be doing right about now is throwing the nearest object through one of Patrick’s floor to ceiling living room windows. Trying to explain why he’s having that reaction, however, would be more difficult than just keeping it together. And Jonny’s a pro at acting chill when he doesn’t actually feel chill. Mostly. At least eighty percent of the time. Unless Patrick is involved.

Patrick frowns, like he’s unsure. “You want me to call back and cancel? I can. It’s your night, Jon.”

“It’s fine,” Jonny says and forces himself to smile.

They stare at each other for a beat, Patrick squinting at Jonny for a while like he’s not sure he believes him, and then he pops up off of the couch.

“Want a drink?” he says, holding his hand out to Jonny. “I have a bottle of Fireball.”

“When did you fucking get that?” Jonny chuckles, taking Patrick’s hand and letting Patrick drag him off the couch and into the kitchen.

Patrick has a nice kitchen. It’s spacious with white fixtures and black marble countertops, all stainless steel appliances, matching teardrop lights, and a large island in the middle with barstools placed strategically around it for sitting. The breadbox on the counter closest to the refrigerator is open and there’s a few drying dishes in the giant farmhouse style sink, but other than that the entire room is tidy and clean and smells faintly of citrus.

Part of Jonny wants to ask if Patrick cleaned for him or if it was just a coincidence that his cleaning service came the day before Jonny and Patrick’s annual birthday hangout. He decides against it as he watches Patrick pull out a small step stool and stand on it to open one of his tallest cabinet doors and grab the bottle of Fireball from the top shelf. Jonny likes Patrick’s kitchen but he really fucking hates Patrick’s kitchen cabinets. Most of them look like they were created for someone at least six feet tall, possibly even taller, with the tallest shelf so high even Jonny has trouble reaching shit. Patrick refuses not to use each shelf and each cabinet even though he has trouble reaching half the stuff and is constantly asking Jonny to grab items for him. And while it’s incredibly adorable watching Patrick use a step stool like he’s a seven year old wanting to grab a cookie from the too-high cookie jar, Jonny almost brains himself every time he walks around in Patrick’s kitchen and runs into the cabinet doors Patrick never remembers to close.

“That’s not important,” Patrick says, setting down the bottle and going back for two glasses. He leaves both doors open.

“It’s still sealed,” Jonny says. “Did you just buy this?”

“No.”

“Did you buy this for me, Peeks?” Jonny smiles.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Patrick says, avoiding Jonny’s eyes as he opens the bottle. 

There’s a knock at the front door and Jonny’s instantly reminded of how their night alone is about to be interrupted and abruptly the growing smile slides off his face as he feels his jaw tighten. He clenches his hands into fists at his sides.

“Twenty minutes. Tops,” Patrick says, as he backs out of the kitchen. “I promise.”

Jonny watches him go and tries to count to ten to keep his breathing even. The clock reads four after seven, and if they can make it out of here by half past the hour then that’ll leave plenty of time for dinner and a movie, whatever Patrick wants to see. Jonny doesn’t care as long as Patrick’s enjoying himself. His taste in television shows is mediocre at best, but his choice in movies, Jonny’s found, is almost always high quality.

The door opens and in the distance, from the comfort of the kitchen, Jonny can hear Aiden and Patrick talking, and then a third, less familiar, but not completely foreign voice joins in. He should go out and say hello, greet Aiden at the very least, be congenial. He’s had to do this kind of thing enough in his life, talking to people he doesn’t like, being friendly with someone he can’t stand, that it’s practically second nature now. The thing is...his feet don’t want to move.

A few more minutes pass, and then Jonny hears the voices get closer.

“Jon here?” Aiden asks.

“Yeah, in the kitchen,” Patrick says.

“JT, come out here!”

It’s now or never. Jonny takes a deep breath and blows it out quick, then walks out into the living room, a tight grin plastered on his face.

“Hey, how’s it goin’?” he says, tilting his chin up in the direction of the group. His eyes land on Patrick first, and take in Patrick’s arms wrapped around his middle, his body angled away, wary, with Aiden beside him who’s looking loose, and unconcerned. Then finally on Henry, who seems almost exactly the same as the last time Jonny last saw him, just sans his dumbass haircut now.

“Jon, you remember Henry, right?” Aiden says. “He was friends with TJ, too.”

He was friends with everyone Jonny knew, unfortunately. They all loved him, thought he was charming and funny, good looking, interesting, entertaining. It’s years later and Jonny still doesn’t understand the appeal. The guy is tall and adequate looking, as far as men go; his face is symmetrical, his teeth are straight, he’s fit if a little lean, and his features are dark in a warm way, but he also reads to Jonny as deeply average in every other conceivable way.

“Of course. How’ve you been, man?” Jonny reaches his hand out for a quick shake and feels Henry squeeze his fingers together before letting go.

“Really good, actually,” Henry says, grinning. “About to finish up my first year of med school. Johns Hopkins.”

“That’s impressive,” Jonny says evenly.

Henry looks pleased. “It’s pretty good, I agree. How about you? What have you been up to?”

“Me?” Jonny asks. “Oh, just more hockey.”

“So the hockey thing is working out for you?” Henry says, like he doesn’t know Aiden, his own friend, is a professional hockey player, or that Patrick is.

Jonny shrugs easily. “I’d say so. What do you think, Kaner?”

“I mean, I guess.” Patrick looks Jonny up and down dramatically as if he’s surveying him, their eyes connecting at the last second as they both try to stifle their smiles.

Henry seems, if not unaware of their joke, unbothered by it. Patrick keeps chewing on his bottom lip like he’s trying to keep it together and that sight appeals to Jonny much more than anything else in the room, so he keeps Patrick in the corner of his eye while he squares off with Henry.

His alpha scent isn’t particularly strong, and it wasn’t when Jonny knew him back at UND either. Some alphas feel threatened by other alphas with strong scents, and will tend to keep their distance or avoid those alphas they believe are encroaching on their territory. It’s an archaic, conservative view Jonny has never put much stock in even when he was younger. He’s found a person will show if they're trustworthy or not through their actions and words, and while scents can be an indicator of a person’s intentions, they're often also motivated by emotions which can be irrational or illogical and therefore cannot always be taken at face value.

If they were, Jonny would probably be in jail every time someone touched Patrick too roughly on the ice.

“Were you guys headed out? We should have a drink,” Aiden says, clapping his hands together. “Let me get you something. Henry?”

Henry looks at Patrick, waiting for him to respond, maybe, then says, “Beer is fine. IPA if you’ve got it.”

“Patty? Jon?” Aiden asks as he backs up in the direction of the kitchen.

“I’m good,” Patrick says.

Aiden looks at Jonny next, but Jonny waves him off. The idea of drinking suddenly seems a lot less appealing now that it isn’t just Patrick and him in Patrick’s kitchen, alone, with that new bottle of Fireball. 

Once Aiden has disappeared, they all stand around awkwardly for half a minute until Patrick politely invites Henry to have a seat in the living room. Patrick sits down at one end of the couch, his usual spot to curl up in, and sets his hands in his lap in the kind of reserved manner Jonny is used to seeing when there’s sports media around. He's headed to take the seat next to Patrick when Henry steps in front of Jonny and slides down on the couch beside Patrick.

There’s a smug smile curling at the edge of his lips, and Jonny notices Henry has dimples underneath the five o’clock shadow dusting the lower half of his face. He’s not a bad looking guy, Jonny doesn’t have a problem admitting that, but his face is also extremely punchable by every other standard and Jonny fantasizes for a moment about how nice it’d feel to make him flinch without even breaking a sweat.

“So you’ve been in Chicago since 2007, Patrick?” Henry asks, turning his body towards Patrick and slipping his arm over the back of the couch, making himself comfortable.

Patrick nods. “That’s right. Since I was drafted.” He folds his hands together and leaves them there, and at first it looks like he’s completely comfortable, but Jonny can tell the longer he watches that Patrick’s subtly gripping the fingers of his right hand with his left. 

“And how do you like it?” Henry says. “My parents are originally from Evanston so we used to visit here during the summer when I was a kid. I went to a few of the accelerated youth science camps in Oak Park and at U of Chicago. It’s a great city. So much to do.”

“It is! I love it,” Patrick says, smiling genuinely. “Feels more and more like home the longer I’m here.” He fiddles with his thumbs a little like he’s thinking, weighing the options of what he wants to say, and then finally asks, “How did you meet Jonny...and Aiden at UND?”

“We took Fundamentals of Biotechnology together our freshman year.”

“You took Fundamentals of Biotechnology?” Patrick asks Jonny, eyes flicking to him, unusually amused. Jonny doesn’t know what’s exciting exactly about that idea, but he shakes his head.

“He means Aiden,” Jonny says.

“Oh, right,” Patrick murmurs. Now he seems...disappointed. Weirdo.

“But he invited me to one of the Fighting Sioux games, and I met Jon at an after party,” Henry continues as if Jonny and Patrick’s interlude never occurred. “I was a little late to the game because I had a reading for the Adelphi Literary Society. Keats,” he says, clarifying. As if that detail has any relevance to their conversation. “I can’t remember the score, but I think you guys ended up losing. Unfortunately.”

“Yep,” Jonny says flatly. They had lost that game. He can’t recall the score to every game in his entire life like Patrick does, his memory isn’t that good, but he remembers the night Henry's talking about specifically. They’d gotten blown out six to two by the Gophers, and Jonny had been pissed leaving the ice and all the way to the Lamda Chi house, thinking about how he’d hit the cross bar no less than four times and not a single fucking puck had gone in. He’d been snakebit for the last handful of games and he was trying as hard as he could to keep calm and loose, not let himself get wound up and make it worse, but he could feel the urge to push harder and harder with every “ping” he’d heard ricocheting throughout the arena that night.

“He also worked at a no-kill animal shelter. Did he tell you that?” Aiden says, cutting into the conversation as he enters the room, two beers in each of his hands. 

“Not yet,” Jonny mumbles under his breath.

Aiden shoots Jonny a questioning glance, like he’s not sure he heard what he heard, but everyone else appears oblivious and that’s just fine with Jonny. He’s not trying to start shit with Henry even if the guy gets under his skin, he’s really not. As long as Henry keeps his hands to himself and stops inching closer to Patrick on the couch, Jonny can sit here and make boring chit chat all evening. It’s not a big deal. 

This whole situation keeps reminding him of Grace from the math department. They’d pass each other on campus every Tuesday and Thursday as Jonny was making his way to and from his afternoon stats class, until finally he saw her lingering by the RE arena after one of his games. He’d thrown out a quick hello, she’d told him he scored a nice goal, and they’d spent the rest of the night talking about random shit he has no recollection of now. But he’d liked her and in a way that was totally separate from Patrick. Often Jonny would choose a hookup over a date because it was easier to not get attached and feel like deep down he was betraying Patrick somehow, even if Patrick was hundreds of miles away, even if Patrick wasn’t interested, even if there was possibly no future there. Jonny felt bound to him like the roots of a tree are sunk into the earth, buried and coiled around the soil, connected. 

His mind would tell him it wasn’t true and his stupid heart would say, ‘but maybe’ and it kept him from reaching out to anyone for years. And when he did, he usually found that the person related to Patrick in some fundamental way Jonny was drawn towards, whether it be their looks or their passion, their interests or their mannerisms. It was exhausting to realize he was hurting himself by accident, or perhaps it was on purpose. Some days he isn’t so sure.

When he met Grace, it was refreshing. She was introverted where Patrick was extroverted, outgoing where he was shy, she liked hockey but her passion was teaching and she talked openly about being an alpha, unbothered by others’ perceptions of her, open about her feelings, and assertive about catching Jonny’s attention. He was so sure he’d finally found someone he could try dating seriously for the first time, and then Henry arrived.

And he’d ruined it.

The guy may have swooped in that night Jonny’s team lost in a blowout and interrupted the good time he was having with Grace as he’d been waiting for the right moment to ask her out, but that wasn’t even the worst part.

It was difficult for Jonny to read the interest of other alphas, but he was fairly certain Grace had been receptive in the weeks leading up to that instant when Henry walked in, decided to start talking about himself, and then didn’t shut up for the rest of the night. Jonny had waited and waited, hoping Henry’d get bored and eventually fuck off, or that Grace at least might, and then they could leave together, but she hadn’t. 

Jonny wasn’t exactly used to having to work too hard for the attention of those he was attracted to, nor was he used to rejection, but he found ultimately what bothered him the most about the situation wasn’t that Grace found someone more appealing, but that she decided Henry, of all people, was more worth her time.

No, that’s not true.

The worst part was that ultimately he didn’t care. He’d really liked Grace and he’d thought she liked him, but she hadn’t, and it didn’t matter. She didn’t matter. Jonny left the party that night and all he felt was a bone-shattering ache to be with Patrick, just to be near him, just to see him smile.

He knew then he’d never escape it and he spent the following year and up through his rookie season with the Hawks accepting the truth of it, that Patrick wouldn’t be his, they wouldn’t be together. If he was lucky he would continue to be a fixture in Patrick’s life, and in Aiden’s too, as their close friend. 

Patrick will never be his, but he will always be Patrick’s, and he’s finally found a sense of peace in that knowledge.

After ten minutes of Henry talking through the highlights of his illustrious postgrad education, Jonny gets up and goes to the fridge to grab a water for himself and an iced tea for Patrick. When he returns Henry is close to Patrick on the couch, near enough his knee would almost be touching Patrick’s knee if he moved even a millimeter over.

Patrick’s hands are still in his lap, but he hasn’t shrunk away or curled into himself the way he sometimes will if someone is taking too many liberties with his personal space. Does he…? Is he…?

“Did you make it to a lot of Jonny and Aiden’s games?” Patrick asks. “I only managed to get to one, but it was a really great environment there. I remember the energy inside the arena was killer.”

“Only a few,” Henry says, scratching at his jaw as if he’s displeased about being interrupted. “Anyway, as I was saying about Maryland, the restaurants upstate are so much nicer than anything you’ll find in the Midwest.”

Jonny cracks the seal on his bottled water, untwists the cap and takes a long drink. In the background Henry’s discussing his life in Baltimore, his stellar loft with its rooftop garden, all of the amazing doctors he’s working with at Johns Hopkins, how he’s considering specializing in neurosurgery, but he might take on oncology because it’s really important to him to help people. Jonny’s confused on how one of those is apparently helping people more than the other, but he also doesn’t want to give Henry any more reason to keep jacking his fucking jaw.

Their knees are brushing now, and Jonny feels his hand tighten around his water bottle. He looks off to the side, out of Patrick’s floor to ceiling windows and watches a particularly dense cloud float by in the distance. He’s trying his best not to let that invisible string with Patrick’s name on it tighten around his ribcage. This is within his control and he’s got it. He’s good. He’s great. 

“I was trying to convince Aiden to come visit me this summer,” Henry says. “He’ll be close by if he’s in Buffalo.” 

“Not that close,” Jonny mumbles.

“And you should come along, Patrick,” Henry continues, as if no one has spoken. “I could show you around.” He lays his hand on Patrick’s thigh and squeezes, the tips of his fingers touching the inseam of Patrick’s dark jeans.

Patrick looks less than impressed and usually that would be a sign for Jonny to take another deep breath and calm down, maybe even walk away, but he’s sat here for the last hour watching Henry slowly encroach on Patrick like he has any right to that space, like he fucking owns it. All the while the string around his chest has been winding tighter and tighter, constricting his air flow until he feels like everything inside of him is being slowly, systematically crushed, until he cannot bear to sit still for another goddamn second without tearing the entire room apart.

He stands abruptly and drops the half full water bottle in his hand, the cap between his thumb and forefinger and not secure on top. Everyone pauses, turning to look at the water spilling out onto Patrick’s pristine gray carpet.

“Shit,” Jonny huffs. “I’ll get some paper towels.”

He takes his perfectly acceptable excuse and flees to the kitchen where he takes heavy, quick footsteps with his increasingly uneven breaths, tries to implement that technique his parents often tell him to do when his temper gets the better of him. In through his nose, one, two, three - out through his mouth, one, two, three.

Repeat.

In one, two, three. Out, one, two, thr-

“FUCK,” Jonny barks out, feeling his forehead throb from where he just slammed into one of the cabinet doors hanging wide open.

Thanks, Aiden.

He reaches up to touch the tender spot and realizes he’s bleeding, just a little, from where the corner of the wood door scraped across his skin. For a second he just stands there dumbly and tries to think about what he wants to do and what he should do, which are two entirely different things.

He should probably wipe up his head, close the fucking cabinet door, and get those paper towels. That’s what he should do. His instincts are screaming at him to go back in that room, pull Patrick into his arms, take him to bed, claim him, mark him, keep him. The blood rushing to his ears is making him dizzy with need, and he wobbles as he takes a step forward, reaching for the counter.

Of course that’s when Patrick walks in with concern written all over his face. “Jonny? You okay?”

Jonny keeps his head down, eyes focused on the marble island countertop and all the individual striations and variations of shades and colors. “Yeah.”

Patrick steps up closer to him, until they’re less than an arm’s length apart. “Hey, what’s - whoa. What happened?”

Jonny sighs. It’s too late now. “Ran into your stupid fucking cabinet door because you always leave it fucking open even though I told you not to.”

There’s an amused smile edging at the corner of Patrick’s mouth, and Jonny might take offense to it if it weren’t also quite so fond. “Stay there. Hold on.”

Jonny stands in place, even if his foot fidgets and shifts, watching as Patrick leaves the room and returns a few moments later with a first aid kit in his hand. He comes around and hops up onto the island so he’s sitting on the counter top, legs dangling over the side. 

“C’mere, grumpy,” Patrick says, tugging on one of Jonny’s light blue shirt sleeves and pulling him close until he’s standing right in front of Patrick, between his legs.

This up close and at this angle, they’re at eye level with each other. Jonny takes advantage of the moment to stare at how blue Patrick’s eyes are in the crisp, white light of the kitchen. His eyelashes are so long.

“I’m not,” Jonny breathes.

Patrick flicks open the lid of the first aid kit and pulls out some hydrogen peroxide, a few cotton balls and a bandaid. “Sure. You just had an outburst for no reason?”

“Not for no reason.”

“Then what reason?”

The dry cotton ball is dabbed gently against his cut first, wiping up the small trickle of blood Jonny can feel trailing down his forehead. After that Patrick discards the dirty cotton ball in favor of a clean one and gingerly coats it with hydrogen peroxide.

Jonny watches him do all of this as if transfixed, unable to look away from Patrick’s skilled hands working or the way he’s totally focused on the task before him. Everything Patrick does, he does with care and precision, and now he’s tenderly looking after Jonny. It’s a lot to take in all at once, Patrick’s warm scent, his proximity, his glistening wet mouth and attentive eyes.

Jonny presses his hands flat to the marble beside Patrick’s thighs and tells himself to be good and considerate and responsible. He tells himself not to touch.

“Henry,” Jonny hisses when Patrick touches the wet, stinging cotton ball to Jonny’s cut. “He’s interested in you.”

Patrick scoffs. “I doubt that.”

“No, he is. I can tell.”

“How can you tell?” Patrick asks, like he’s disbelieving. He cups the sides of Jonny’s face and draws his head down at an angle and then blows soft, cool air over Jonny’s cut until the heat of the chemical he just applied begins to dissipate.

Jonny’s hands ball into fists beside Patrick’s thighs and he clenches his jaw. He needs to remember to breathe. Breathing is good.

“His hands were on you, Patrick. He was basically trying to rub himself all over you,” Jonny says through gritted teeth. “Christ.”

He doesn’t mean for his response to come out so angry sounding and he’s usually much better at keeping his emotions, his instincts, his everything locked down, held together. But Patrick’s fingers are right there, against his neck, his inner thighs brushing Jonny’s outer thighs, their faces only inches apart, and he’s looking at Jonny like he doesn’t understand.

“Why do you care if he’s interested in me?” Patrick asks, his eyes suddenly huge and vulnerable, his eyebrows drawn up in an angle at the center.

“I’ve always cared,” Jonny says, low. He’s baffled at the idea Patrick might not have known. He’s never hidden his feelings, even if he’s never said anything explicitly out loud either, but he was so sure his constant displays of protectiveness and his inability to always hide his possessiveness made it absolutely crystal clear.

Patrick’s stunned expression is astonishing. “I-I’m. You do?” His voice cracks at the end of his sentence, swallowed up by his throat clicking. Jonny might think he’s almost scared, but for the way he’s gripping at Jonny’s forearm with one hand while the other is clutching at Jonny’s shirt like he unconsciously doesn’t want Jonny to move away.

Jonny leans in, and in again, until he’s farther between Patrick’s legs, his lower half pressed to the island. The veins in his wrists pulse as he squeezes his fists. He looks at Patrick fiercely for one instant and then down, gaze focusing on Patrick’s bare neck and the gold chain he wears peeking out from above his shirt. “Of course I do. You’re the most... It’s just hard for me to control myself when I’m around you sometimes, because I forget that you aren’t mine.”

The silence that follows is agonizing. Jonny forces himself up to face Patrick head on like he deserves. He doesn’t know what he expects to see but it isn’t more confusion, more surprise.

“What?” Patrick chokes out, like a thunderbolt struck him from up above.

If Patrick’s upset because Jonny couldn’t keep his dumb feelings in check, he’ll never forgive himself. “Fuck,” he murmurs. “I’m sorry. I told myself I wasn’t going to push again. Not after I pushed during the onset of your heat and made everything so goddamn awkward. And here I am doing it again. I swear I don’t mean to. I try not to. You’re probably right to... stay away.”

He needs to step back and give Patrick his space, give him room to move away from Jonny if he wants to. It’s just so difficult to step back when all Jonny wants is to press further in.

“But you said no,” Patrick says, his shaky words breaking through Jonny’s thoughts.

It takes his brain a minute to compute what Patrick’s telling him and what it means.

“No?” Jonny asks, because clarification is important.

Patrick’s eyes are impossibly wide. He licks his lips almost nervously. “I came onto you that morning.”

“You can’t control what your heat makes you do. It’s okay.”

“Maybe in the middle of a heat, but I wasn’t in the middle of a heat,” Patrick explains, his face so serious despite the rising flush to his cheeks. “It’d just begun. I came onto you because I wanted you. And you said no.”

“You looked out of your mind with it, Peeks. Your skin was so hot and your eyes were all glassy,” Jonny says.

And then he stops. He replays what Patrick just said.

_I came onto you because I wanted you._

It doesn’t feel real. That couldn’t be what he just heard.

“Yeah, because of _you_. I think - I’m pretty sure it was you that triggered my heat.” Patrick’s ears are bright red and look hot to the touch. He’s so still in a way Jonny’s only ever used to seeing during certain moments in very intense games.

“It was most likely already close,” Jonny argues. Because. Well, because he’s still not sure he heard what he heard, and he has to be certain. He has to _know_.

 _Because I wanted you_.

Patrick shakes his head. “No. I had one right before preseason began. I remember because I was glad I wasn’t going to have to miss any games, which meant I’d only have one during the season and that should’ve come around March. November was way too soon.”

“Why would me being there trigger your heat?” Jonny asks like an idiot. Has he been wrong all of this time? “We’ve known each other for years and…”

Patrick swallows, his eyes falling away and then returning. He doesn’t speak for the longest time, like the idea of saying something is horrifying. His features keep defaulting into this miserable expression that’s causing Jonny to feel sick.

The limbo of them both sitting there waiting, unmoving, thinking seems to last an eternity until Patrick closes his eyes as his shoulders slump.

“And you’ve never slept in my bed with me before, pressed up against me,” Patrick says. “My body must have thought it was time if you were so close to me.”

Every single hair on Jonny’s body rises, goosebumps littering his arms. He can feel his pulse racing inside of his head.

“And why would your body think that?”

Patrick’s head, which was already ducked down, lowers once more. “You know.”

_I wanted you._

“I don’t,” Jonny says, not really, not without hearing it again.

“You said no,” Patrick whispers, and it hits Jonny with a blow that could level Chicago.

Patrick thinks - for months he’s thought - Jonny said no because he didn’t want Patrick back. The idea is so absurd to Jonny that he didn’t even consider it a possibility, not during Patrick’s heat or in all the minutes after, and to know Patrick’s carried this with him, that it’s hurt him...Jonny almost can’t bear it.

“Baby,” he says with every bit of yearning he’s tried to pack away and is currently collapsing, shifting, reforming into one bright point that’s expanding inside of him until it’s about to burst. “I wasn’t saying no because I didn’t want to. I wanted to so badly, I went home and spent the next twenty four hours in the worst - best - most intense rut I’ve ever felt, just reliving that look in your eyes and the smell of your slick, the way you rubbed your face against me. I haven’t been able to think of anything else since.”

It’s been _years_. Years and years of Jonny telling himself to respect Patrick’s boundaries, his space, his time. He hasn’t always succeeded, but god, how he’s tried. And now Patrick’s looking at Jonny like he’s utterly staggered by Jonny’s admission, like he didn’t know, like he was unaware all along of Jonny’s devotion to him. It’s a strike right through the core of him, and it scrapes out everything, every thought, every fear, leaving only this - only them.

Jonny lets go with a shuddery breath and does what feels right, cupping his hands around Patrick’s hips, holding on. His fingertips dig into the edge of Patrick’s ass. “I said no because I wasn’t sure it was you asking and I couldn’t... I wouldn’t recover if it wasn’t real.”

Patrick’s expression is wonderstruck. He stares at Jonny openly for the longest moment of his life and then shoves his face into Jonny’s neck and breathes him in.

“It’s real,” Patrick says, and starts to shake.

Jonny can’t speak. It takes him three tries to open his mouth. “Yeah?”

“It’s always been real for me.”

The confession splits Jonny’s being down to the very atom, blows him open with the force of a nuclear explosion. If every particle in his body once belonged to a star, Jonny now knows what stars feel like.

“Can I kiss you?” he asks, even as he’s drawing Patrick’s head away from his neck so Jonny can meet his eyes again.

Patrick blinks up at him reverently. “Yes.”

“Can I take you to bed?” Jonny asks, his thumb brushing over Patrick’s bottom lip and the square line of his chin.

“Yes.”

Jonny presses their foreheads together, pulls Patrick closer to him until he’s sitting on the edge of the island and their bodies are almost flush. “Can I keep you?"

Patrick shivers, wrapping his arms around Jonny’s back, fisting his hands in the back of his shirt. “Please,” he whimpers. “Alpha.”

“ _Fuck_.” Jonny can’t think anymore, he can only act, can only press his lips to Patrick’s, lick into his mouth, and savor in the taste of him, the feel of him. The urge to sink into Patrick in every possible way imaginable is like a clawing need pulsing through him, heating his blood, setting fire to his skin. “I need everyone else out of here now,” he growls against Patrick’s jaw. 

“Yes,” Patrick pants. He tries to squirm closer to Jonny, leaves pecking kisses over his neck, up to his cheek, back down again. “Can you let me down and I’ll tell them to go?”

Jonny’s hands tighten on Patrick of their own volition. “No, I don’t think I can let you go again. I’m sorry.” He nuzzles his nose against Patrick’s temple, drags his lips over the shell of Patrick’s ear. He doesn’t ever want to stop touching him.

“Should I just yell?” Patrick says, the words tripping out of his mouth in a breathy, half gasped out laugh. “Tell them to fuck off?”

“Rude, maybe, but I endorse it,” Jonny hums. He wonders if he can get Patrick naked and fuck him on this island without having to move away from him. 

No, that’s wrong. Patrick wouldn’t like it here for their first time, and neither would Jonny, it’s too out in the open and anyone could see or hear. No one can put their eyes on Patrick like that but Jonny, from now on. Maybe later in the kitchen. The fifteenth time. Or the sixteenth. He’ll have to do some convincing. He knows how Patrick feels about clean countertops.

“I’ll call,” Patrick says and looks temporarily upset at having to drop his right arm from around Jonny’s body to pull his cell phone from his pocket. Jonny watches him scroll through his recent calls and tap on Aiden’s name. It rings twice before there’s an answer. “Aiden? Yeah, it’s me in the kitchen. I need you to take Henry and leave.”

“Why?” Jonny hears Aiden say. He’s licking at a specific spot on Patrick’s neck that’s causing his hips to jerk forward. “What’s going on?”

“Me and Jonny need to be alone,” Patrick says.

“For what?” Aiden asks. He sounds skeptical. 

There’s a long beat where Patrick doesn’t speak, his teeth biting into his bottom lip as Jonny sucks at that same spot he just licked. He can tell Patrick’s trying to hold any sounds in, but he can’t quite hide the gasp that escapes when Jonny scrapes his teeth down to the meat of Patrick’s barely exposed shoulder and lightly bites. 

“For sex?” 

“Um,” Patrick says, his higher brain function clearly checked out.

Jonny takes the phone from him and brings it up to his own ear. “Bud, I love ya, but please just fuck off.”

A surprised, barked out laugh filters through the receiver and then, “Well, someone’s knot is in a twist! Fucking finally!”

Later Jonny will question why exactly Aiden sounds so relieved when he was the one who brought Henry over for Patrick in the first place. But for now he’s too busy hanging up the phone, dropping it on the counter and getting his hands and mouth back on Patrick to care about anything else in the entire world, short of some galaxy-ending catastrophe.

Several minutes pass and Jonny thinks he eventually hears the front door open and close, but it’s difficult to track what’s happening outside of their bubble of two.

“Are they gone?”

Patrick picks up his discarded phone and types in a text, and looks up when he receives one seconds later. “They’re gone.”

Jonny looks back at him, sees Patrick’s eyes blown black, his entire face heartbreakingly beautiful and still inching towards uncertainty after everything they’ve just said to one another.

That simply will not fucking do.

Fitting his hand to the nape of Patrick's neck, he pulls him close and kisses him deep and hard until they’re both breathless and panting against each other’s mouths, sharing the same air.

“Wrap your arms and legs around me,” Jonny says low into Patrick’s ear, their cheeks pressed together.

Patrick lets out a shaky exhale and does as he’s told. “Like this?”

“Just like that,” Jonny says, trying to keep it together until he can get Patrick into his locked bedroom, undressed, and tight around his knot. Just the thought has him so hard he’s not one hundred percent sure his knees will keep them both upright. But nobody has ever called Jonathan Toews a quitter, he’s got this. “Hold on.”

The first few steps as Jonny lifts Patrick from the island and walks them out of the kitchen are unsteady, and it has nothing to do with Patrick’s weight in his arms. Patrick isn’t light, he’s packed full of solid muscle and gorgeously long limbs, but he isn’t heavy either, and yet it’s Jonny’s own inability to stop the swirling thoughts of how much he’s wanted this and now it’s happening and he can’t screw it up stabbing at his brain. Paired with his throbbing dick and all of the blood rushing south from his head, currently he’s a fucking mess.

Patrick’s got his face shoved to Jonny’s neck again, rubbing his mouth and nose all over it, scenting it, making Jonny crazy with want. He has to pause more than once and count each step he takes until he’s finally through the door of Patrick’s bedroom and flipping the lock, blessedly closing everyone else out.

Fifteen, then ten, then five feet to Patrick’s bed and Jonny stops at the edge of it and leans forward to set Patrick down on the mattress.

“Gonna let me go, baby?” Jonny asks.

“No,” Patrick says, tightening his legs around Jonny’s waist and nuzzling his face in closer.

“I can’t get us both undressed if you don’t.”

“That’s okay.”

Jonny chuckles, running his hand along the line of Patrick’s spine. “I can’t knot you if we don’t.”

What sounds like a muffled sob is lost between Patrick’s mouth and Jonny’s skin, and Jonny turns to see Patrick slowly loosening his hold until he’s on his back on the bed, red mouthed, and hesitant-looking.

Jonny takes a chance that Patrick isn’t tentative about them, him, so much as he is about the newness of the situation and picks up one of his legs as he kneels by the edge of the bed. He starts to unlace Patrick’s fancy sneakers, one hand cupped around his calf muscle to hold him still.

“This okay?”

Patrick nods slowly. “Yes.”

Jonny takes off one shoe, then the other, removes his socks and scoots closer to reach for the button on Patrick’s jeans.

“And this?”

“Yes,” Patrick says, propped up on his elbows so he can watch Jonny work.

The button comes free from its hole and then the zipper is pulled down and as Jonny draws Patrick’s pants off his hips, he notices Patrick is free from boxers or any other kind of underwear. Jonny’s mind briefly blacks out at seeing Patrick’s pretty pink cock thick and full against his pale thigh. He’s beautifully proportioned and the tip is glossy from where he’s been leaking. Jonny wants to touch him there so badly it hurts to stop and refocus his attention on the task at hand: getting Patrick absolutely bare.

Once the pants are gone, Jonny holds out his hand to get Patrick to sit up and then goes for the hem of his long sleeved T-shirt and lifts until it too is all the way off and Patrick is fully naked in front of him.

It’s physically impossible for Jonny to not take a moment to stand there and look down at Patrick’s gorgeous body, all of his creamy, smooth skin, his wonderfully toned muscles, the stiff peak of his pink nipples, and the graceful spread of his elegant thighs. It’s so much and Jonny isn’t sure Patrick realizes just how stunning he truly is from the top of his curly head to the bottom of his calloused toes.

Jonny stares long enough Patrick flops onto his back and covers his face with his arms, one hand reaching to clamp around his opposite wrist.

“Jonny,” he says, muffled by his hands and it sounds a lot like _please touch me_.

Jonny kneels on the floor again and wraps his arms around Patrick’s thighs, gets them underneath where he has more leverage and drags Patrick’s entire body to a position where his ass is close enough for Jonny to lean down and put his mouth on it. He doesn’t, not right away, instead kissing up Patrick’s inner thighs and the bend of his knees, causing Patrick to squirm and fidget. He kisses the crease between Patrick’s leg and groin, mouths at his taut balls to the base of his cock, observing the way it violently twitches when Jonny rubs a thumb over his perineum.

Being this close, Jonny can smell Patrick’s slick, thick in the air and sweet to every single one of Jonny’s senses. He’s going to taste that slick. He’s going to lap it up, spread his own scent all over Patrick until they’re completely drenched in each other, until there’s zero doubt to anyone who they both belong to. When he dips his tongue into Patrick’s wet, glistening hole and traces around the rim, the moan that flies out of Patrick’s mouth is high-pitched and bone-deep satisfying.

“How about this?” Jonny asks as he rises to catch a glimpse of Patrick’s half-hidden face and his arched back.

He doesn’t wait for Patrick to answer, diving back in and pressing a kiss to his sweet little hole, licking in and in and in until that hole gives and Jonny’s tongue is thrusting inside of him. Patrick gasps a punched out, “Holy shit,” and jerks so hard he almost causes Jonny to fall backward.

“Hold still, baby,” Jonny tells him, using his alpha voice. Patrick shudders almost as hard and goes still. From this angle Jonny can see Patrick clenching the hand around his wrist over and over, like he’s trying to keep himself together, like he doesn’t want to lose it just yet. Jonny can relate.

Fucking his tongue back into Patrick, he slides one of his hands up to Patrick’s belly and wraps it loosely around his cock, pumping it lightly as his thumb barely brushes over the frenulum. He can feel the precome Patrick’s been steadily leaking dribble onto his knuckles and down the back of his hand. At the same time a gush of slick slips from his hole, onto Jonny’s tongue and mouth. It's covering his chin and dripping onto the shirt he forgot to take off but he couldn’t care less. He wants to be covered in Patrick. He wants to smell only of Patrick for the rest of his life.

“Jon,” Patrick says like he’s desperate.

“Yeah, baby?”

“Come up here,” he pleads and reaches down to grab the shoulders of Jonny’s shirt.

There’s this fantasy Jonny’s had of Patrick since he was sixteen and just figuring out what the hell to do with his knot. Patrick’s in Jonny’s childhood bed, on Jonny's old navy blue flannel sheets, and he’s wondrously naked, begging for Jonny to fuck his brains out. He’s crazy with it, almost feral he wants Jonny so badly. They’re completely alone, away from all of their teammates at Shattuck, free from familial and hockey obligations with an endless span of hours before them, and only each other to keep company. And when Patrick drags Jonny down on top of him and wraps around him like he’d sooner rip someone’s throat out than let Jonny go, in his head Jonny would descend into him with the same kind of ferocious abandon until they were both wrung out and boneless in each other’s arms. For the longest time Jonny held onto that image like a sacred and precious secret, carrying it with delicate hands throughout the years.

That fantasy pales in comparison to the reality of having Patrick before him now. Even in his best dreams Jonny couldn’t have imagined the depth of emotion in Patrick’s eyes, or the way his lips would tremble, or how the heat of his skin would feel, or the sublime smell of his omega scent as it curled around Jonny’s entire being.

He strips off his own clothes quickly and without any fanfare, throwing them on the floor in a rush as Patrick’s eyes track his every movement. Then he’s on the bed, between Patrick’s thighs, their cocks rubbing together and Patrick’s head thrown back as he moans with every caress of Jonny’s body against his.

Sliding his right hand down between their bodies, Jonny gently circles Patrick’s slick hole with two fingers, pressing and pressing until Patrick’s body gives and lets him in again.

“You don’t need to do that,” Patrick murmurs. “I’m already pretty open from your mouth.”

“Oh, I think I do,” Jonny says, and kisses at Patrick’s sternum, and then one of Patrick’s nipples until he whines. “My dick is a little bit bigger than my tongue.”

“I don’t want to wait,” Patrick says, and shoves a hand in his hair when Jonny finds his prostate and begins massaging it. “Do you - do you want to wait?”

Jonny can’t help the laugh that bubbles up from his throat even though he knows Patrick’s question is being posed with serious and probably even anxious intent. “Peeks,” he says and waits for Patrick to reluctantly gaze up at him. “Fuck _no_ , I don’t want to wait. But I’m not going to run into this without looking and possibly hurt you. Okay?”

Patrick nods and shivers as Jonny adds a third, and then a few minutes later, a fourth finger. By the time Jonny’s more than sure Patrick’s stretched wide enough to comfortably take him, he’s feeling dazed and clumsy with the need to be inside Patrick.

“Condoms?” he asks, even if the idea is repulsive to him, even if he knows Patrick’s on suppressants and has been since he was teenager. This isn’t a choice for Jonny to make.

Patrick blinks up at him in confusion for a minute. “Condoms? Why?”

“Do you want me to wear one?” Jonny says. “I’m clean, but I’ll wear one if you want.”

Pushing up onto his elbows, Patrick gives Jonny the most hilariously offended look he’s seen since they were rookies and he’d gotten on Patrick’s last nerve continually leaving his rank workout clothes all over their hotel room floor.

“No, I don’t want condoms,” Patrick says adamantly. “Just us.”

Jonny feels a small, soft smile turn up his mouth. “Just us,” he agrees. And then he grabs the base of his cock and fits the head to Patrick’s opening as he hears a choked off exclamation.

“God, you’re big. I mean I thought you might be after the hotel room, but...”

“You saw me in the hotel room? I thought you were asleep.”

Patrick bites at his bottom lip. “I wasn’t. I - I saw you and went into the bathroom to finger myself.”

“Jesus, Peeks. You’re fucking killing me.” The idea of Patrick being so turned on by the sight of Jonny's dick that he had to slip into the next room to fingerfuck himself... Jonny can't help but feel smug. His smile slides into a filthy smirk. “Ready?”

“I,” Patrick swallows. “I - yeah. Yes.”

Jonny pushes in slowly, trying to concentrate on easing in inch-by-inch as Patrick collapses to the bed and grasps at the sheets on either side of him.

“You’re doing so good,” Jonny tells him, to keep him from tensing up, to make sure he _knows_. “My good omega.”

Another gush of slick drips out of Patrick and onto Jonny’s dick as he slides further and further in, Patrick attempting to hide his face again as he lets out a heaving, wrecked breath. 

“Holy shit, you’re so big, Jonny.”

“Too much?” 

“Yes,” Patrick gasps out. Then, “No, maybe. Don’t stop.”

“Won’t ever stop,” Jonny says, and leans down closer to Patrick’s body, hitching Patrick’s legs up around his waist as his cock finally eases all the way inside. 

He stops once they’re fully connected and settles in on top of Patrick, pulling Patrick’s arms away from his face so he can look down into his favorite pair of eyes. He brings Patrick’s right wrist up and leaves a gentle kiss on the tender skin over his pulse point. He repeats the process with the left before taking both of Patrick’s arms and placing them over his head, a silent order for Patrick to keep them there.

“I’ve wanted this for so fucking long,” Jonny says as he begins to move, pumping his hips slowly, taking in every minute change in Patrick’s face as he melts beneath Jonny.

“How long?” Patrick says, and moans as Jonny strikes over his prostate, causing him to arch up and clench down. It triggers a cascading reaction that has Jonny to groaning and shuddering, his hips snapping forward to fuck into Patrick faster, the whole loop beginning again.

“Always,” Jonny states, kissing Patrick’s mouth as he grabs hold of his wrists once more and slides his hands to Patrick’s hands, interlocking their fingers. “Since the beginning. From before you presented.” He sees tears slip from Patrick’s eyes as he gulps for air, overwhelmed by the feel of Jonny moving within him and above him. 

Jonny kisses the tears from Patrick’s cheeks and feels his own eyes begin to go blurry. His heart is pounding so fast inside of his chest he thinks he might transform into a supernova.

“Used to dream about you crawling into my bed at Shattuck so many times I’ve lost count. Or me walking into your dorm room and you waiting for me there, naked and slick. And every time you’d beg for my knot. Just for me.”

Patrick tilts his face up, asking for another kiss and Jonny obliges. One kiss turns into two, into five, into them making out achingly slow and deep as Jonny’s thrusts find a rhythm, just enough to keep them on the edge, but not so much to tip them both over.

“It _was_ just you,” Patrick breathes. “Every stupid little daydream, every heat, every time I touched myself and wanted to get off, it was you, Jon.”

Jonny shudders at the thought, his hips snapping forward hard without his permission. “Did you think about me during your last heat?”

“Yes.”

“What did you think about?”

“I - I can’t,” Patrick swallows. He turns his head to try to hide it in the pillow.

Jonny sucks a wet mark into Patrick's exposed neck. He can feel the area around where his knot grows begin to grow warm, a sure sign it’s going to pop soon. “Yes, you can.”

“It’s too much,” Patrick says, clamping his eyes shut like he’s ashamed. “You don’t want to hear all of that.”

Jonny needs to make him understand in the most explicit way possible that not only does he want this, he wants it so bad he’d commit the most savage of crimes for it, he’d tear down entire cities and destroy every drop of water in the ocean for it. “I want to hear it, Peeks. I want to know everything. Tell me.”

“I thought about your voice,” Patrick murmurs, tiny gasped out moans leaving with every other word as Jonny continues to fuck into him as he speaks. “Your alpha voice. Talking to me, telling me what to do, what you want, how you want me.”

“That’s good,” Jonny says, his voice husky and raw now. “That’s what I would do. What else?”

“Thought about your scent all over me, your skin against mine, your hands touching me everywhere.”

“Where?”

“My whole body.”

“Anywhere specific?” Jonny asks.

“My mouth, my nipples, my dick, my hole,” Patrick says, growing quieter and quieter as he talks.

Jonny draws his face away from the pillow and kisses Patrick as a reward, and then again because he never wants to stop. “I touched you there, didn’t I? And I’m going to keep touching you there. Your perfect body. What else?”

Patrick tilts his face up for more kisses, trying to chase Jonny’s mouth, his face so sweetly vulnerable as he blinks open his eyes. “Thought about your cock, licking it, sucking it, having it fuck me. And your knot. Want your knot so bad, Jonny.”

“It’s coming, baby,” Jonny growls, feeling his knot throb, reverberating throughout his entire dick. “I’ve never knotted outside of a rut before, but I’m going to knot you. I can already feel it swelling. That’s what you do to me.”

“God,” Patrick cries and clenches down. It only makes Jonny’s knot swell faster, and he can feel Patrick become impossibly tight, and tighter around him as the seconds tick by.

He tries to focus, even as his thrusts slow and his knot swells. He doesn’t want to come until they’ve finished this discussion. “Was that it? Was that all you thought about?”

Patrick stares up at him for a long time, searching, his hands twitching and his fingers loosening. “One more thing.”

“Yeah?”

“You don’t - ” He starts and tries to pull his hands all the way free.

Jonny lets them go so he can clamp his own hands around Patrick’s wrists to ground him, watching the way Patrick goes boneless and limp once he does. He nudges Patrick’s cheek with his nose to catch his eyes again. “I do, Peeksy. I want it all with you.”

There’s some kind of battle warring within Patrick’s mind and Jonny can see it all within his ever shifting and expressive face, from the glittering of his eyes in the low light, to his knitted brow, to his kiss-bruised and plush lips being pressed together, opening, and closing again.

Jonny’s learned to be patient for Patrick and not because it guarantees that Jonny will earn anything from it, but because Patrick deserves to have the people that love him hold him in their palms with tenderness and compassion. And if Patrick needs a moment here like he has before, like he might in the future, Jonny can persevere in this too.

“Thought about you,” Patrick murmurs eventually, then pauses again, and takes a breath. “You knotting me, putting your baby in me. Having a family with you.”

It’s the final wire being tripped inside his head and Jonny’s knot pulses as it swells to its maximum capacity, causing them both to shout and cling to one another. His brain is completely scrambled as he thrusts inside of Patrick in short, aborted pumps of his hips, his cock only able to move so much now that his knot is full and locking them together.

“I love you,” Jonny moans, panting and shaking as he tries to hold himself up, beginning to go off. “I want that too.”

“Jonathan,” Patrick cries out, his entire body one massive, quivering mess.

“Come for me,” Jonny orders, biting down on Patrick’s neck and listening to his scream as he goes off. He’s clenching down on Jonny, legs wrapped around him so tightly he’s shaking, head thrown back while he spurts up his torso. “Just like that,” Jonny tells him. “My beautiful omega. You’re _mine.”_

And it’s the realization of this truth as he says it that sets him off too. Patrick belongs to him now, and he belongs to Patrick. They’ve always been one another’s in some intrinsic way he couldn’t quite name, like their very cells recognized something kindred and were drawn to a familiar home. 

After Patrick’s finished coming and is beneath Jonny, gasping through the aftershocks and dazed, Jonny picks him up as best he can, enveloping Patrick’s torso in his arms, and flips them until Jonny’s on his back with Patrick on top, more comfortable. As soon as they’re resituated, Patrick licks a stripe over Jonny’s sweaty neck and shoves his face against there like he’s scenting him. Then he kisses Jonny with wet, breathy presses of his lips, like he can’t make himself stop.

“Love you so much,” Patrick says to him, and Jonny falls all the way apart.

*

An hour later Jonny wakes with Patrick still lying on top of him, asleep, and his knot finally having deflated enough for his cock to slip out. They’re sticky from their necks to their knees and Jonny has to piss like a racehorse. He doesn’t want to move, but he also knows if he doesn’t clean them up a little, Patrick will be displeased in the morning, and Jonny’s not starting off their first day as an official couple with a mate that isn’t incandescently happy.

It takes some work to slip from under Patrick without waking him, but Jonny manages it well enough. He pads to his ensuite bathroom and goes to piss after cleaning himself of dried come, washing his hands, and brushing his teeth. Then he grabs a washcloth from his linen closet and holds it under the tap until it’s sufficiently warm. When he walks back into his bedroom and gets close enough to his bed to see Patrick in the darkness, he can make out that Patrick's eyes are open and watching Jonny.

“Hey,” Patrick murmurs, less groggy and more alert than Jonny was expecting from how even his breathing sounded when he’d left Patrick minutes ago.

Jonny climbs in bed beside him, gently pulling back the comforter. “Hi, you. Can’t sleep?”

“Just thinking.”

“About?” Jonny asks. Once he’s on the bed, he draws the comforter even further down, past Patrick’s chest, his middle, and his thighs, leaving him bare in front of Jonny.

He curls a little inward, like the air is chilly, but Jonny stops him by moving in close so he can begin wiping Patrick’s chest and abs clean.

“The bye week,” Patrick says, watching Jonny work silently for a beat. “And that trip you took with Aiden to Miami.”

“Yeah?” Jonny says, not sure where this is going. He keeps getting distracted by all of Patrick’s naked skin and where his cock is soft against his pale thigh. Their scents are so strongly concentrated in this room, and in this bed and it makes Jonny want to roll around in it like a pig in mud. He might never leave Patrick’s room ever again.

“Did you want me there?” Patrick asks quietly.

“Of course,” Jonny says, because he wants Patrick with him all the time. “But you said you were going with Sharpy and Abby.”

Patrick nods, teeth worrying at his bottom lip. “I know. I just kept picturing something happening between you guys and it was...” He stops and stares as Jonny moves the washcloth from his abs to his inner thighs. “I want you both to be happy, but the thought of you together almost killed me.”

Jonny laughs at first. He doesn’t mean to, it’s just that he can’t help himself. The words are absurd. It’s not only outrageous, but it’s comical, it’s hysterical. Jonny wheezes a little he laughs so hard at the thought of him and Aiden. He only stops when he catches Patrick’s wounded expression and suddenly it’s a lot less amusing to poke fun at.

He scoots closer to Patrick in bed, if it’s even possible, and tugs him into his arms, pressing a kiss to Patrick’s neck, his jaw, the delicate shell of his ear. “I’m sorry,” Jonny says softly. “It’s just so fucking ridiculous to me. I love Aiden. He’s my best friend. But I’ve never once thought about him like that, baby. It’s been you for me for so long that even when I thought I’d never have you, I couldn’t really think about anyone else that way, and definitely never your own brother.”

“Oh,” Patrick says, and he sounds so surprised, even now, even after they’ve tied, that Jonny almost wants to laugh again, but he doesn’t. It’ll take time for both of them to adjust to this change, and he has to remember that. They can’t rush into this unless they’re both on the same page.

Jonny sits up against the headboard, reluctantly letting Patrick go, and giving them both space as he says this next part.

“Look,” he says, staring intently at Patrick. “I was going to wait to say all of this until we settled into things but I think now I need to make it really fucking clear what my intentions are here. Are you ready?”

“Okay,” Patrick says, sitting up as well. He doesn’t really seem ready, but Jonny loves him for trying anyway.

Jonny sets his arm on his thigh, palm up and open, a clear invitation. A request for trust. He doesn’t even have to wait two seconds before Patrick’s hand finds his, their fingers entangling. Jonny fits his free hand around Patrick’s wrist and holds it loosely, watching the lines around Patrick’s eyes smooth out. Then he says, “You’re it for me. I want to marry you, and make babies with you, and one day retire and buy a house in Canada with you to raise our family in. And I want to know you’re on the same page.” He’s going to stop there, as that’s all he needs to say, but then he thinks better of it. “But if you need time to think it over I understand. You don’t have to say anything right now. I’ll be here whenever you’re ready.”

In answer, Patrick climbs into his lap and kisses him. “Yes.”

“Yes to what?” Jonny says.

Patrick’s smile is so bright, so happy, it could illuminate the entirety of the western hemisphere. “Yes to all of it. Everything. I’m not sure about retiring in Canada, but if that’s a sticking point then yes to that too. Just one condition.”

“You’ve got it,” Jonny says, without hesitation. His hands go around Patrick’s strong back, his fingers spanning the breadth of it, pressing in, pressing him closer.

Patrick loops his arms around Jonny’s neck, fingers playing with the hair at the nape of Jonny’s head. It’s making his toes tingle and his belly warm. It’s making him want to put Patrick on his back and knot him again and again. 

“Take me on a beach vacation this summer, just me and you.”

Jonny lets out a joyful laugh, his cheeks aching from the grin stretched across his face. He nuzzles his nose to Patrick’s neck, scents him like he’s wanted to for ten years and what feels like all of his life, and says, “I’ll take you anywhere you want, Peeks.”

*

_**2013**_

The sun is high in the sky on a balmy July Sunday in Winnipeg and Jonny can’t stop smiling. Almost everyone he loves and everything he cares about are in the backyard of his lake house, celebrating his official day with the Cup. His second day, technically speaking, as the captain gets two and his first was in Chicago with the boys, taking the Cup around downtown. This day is for friends and family, and the majority of the Toews-Gilbert clan are all present, spread out over Jonny’s property as everyone visits with each other and eats catered barbecue ribs, chicken wraps, and veggie salads. 

The weekend before, Jonny, Ivy, and the twins were all in Buffalo celebrating Patrick and Aiden’s back-to-back Cup days with the Kane family. The four of them went to a pool party at Tiki and Donna’s house, visited Grandpa Kane, hung out with several of Patrick and Aiden’s childhood friends, and took the Cup to a few community centers so the local kids could see it.

Erica spent two hours while Patrick was distracted with his grandpa grilling Jonny on when he was going to propose to her brother, and it killed Jonny to have to be vague about it, or see Patrick walking around without his ring. But they’d made a decision, in private, and before they’d left Chicago for Buffalo, to let that weekend be about the Cup win, as it was Aiden’s first.

Jonny could tell it still bothered Patrick at times that winning their first Cup had taken the chance away from Aiden. And it didn’t matter how much Jonny tried to convince Patrick that it wasn’t something he needed to be guilty about, that Aiden was happy for him, it still bothered him deep down, in a quiet way he wouldn’t exactly name. That feeling of Patrick's made it an easy decision then to just wait and let the Kane Cup weekend be what it was, for Jonny's fiancé and his best friend. There’d be plenty of time to tell Patrick’s parents and sisters later, to listen to Erica and Jessica grill Patrick about who he was choosing for his best man, for Jackie to squeal about wedding planning, for Tiki to give Jonny “the talk,” and Donna to give him a teary hug.

Jonny was actually looking forward to it. And if he needed to prove himself to Tiki that he was the best person to marry Tiki's son, well, he’d take on that challenge proudly.

As much fun as it had been visiting in New York, the weekend had been busy, full of going from place to place and talking with a lot of people he didn’t know well. It’s good to be back in Canada, celebrating with his family, relaxing by the lake, and slathering Patrick with sun tan lotion every hour to make sure his sensitive skin doesn’t burn. And Jonny can't lie - he's happy to see the engagement ring back on Patrick's finger where it belongs, even if nobody else has spotted it yet.

Patrick doesn’t seem all that interested in going out on the boat or wakeboarding like Aiden does, but he’s also happy to sit on the dock sipping whatever fruity beverage Jonny brings him, chatting with Ivy or Mom or Dan. And it’s like a game, catching Patrick looking in his direction when he thinks Jonny can’t see him, feeling that gentle pulse of their bond that lets Jonny know Patrick’s thinking of him, wanting him. He returns it every time their eyes connect from across the crowd, his stomach fluttering when Patrick ducks his head, his mouth curling sweetly up.

After everyone’s finished eating and Jonny’s taken a few of his friends on a spin around the lake, he comes back inside to get cleaned up and crosses paths with his mom as he walks into the kitchen.

“ _We’re almost out of bottled water outside. Is there more around?_ ” she asks in her lilted French.

“Oui, I have a couple cases in the basement,” Jonny answers. Off to the side he can see David chatting with an alpha woman Jonny doesn’t recognize. It looks like they’re flirting, or at least David is. Jonny’s not sure the woman seems as interested, because she keeps glancing down at her phone. Not a great sign.

“ _Can you go get them and bring them out to the beverage table?_ ” Mom says.

“Sure.”

“Merci, cheri.” She smiles, cupping his face gently before slipping out of the sliding door attached to the kitchen and stepping into the backyard.

Jonny goes to fetch the cases, grabbing three twenty-four packs and stacking them on top of each other as he carries them up the stairs. As he hits the sliding glass door, he sees Aiden on the other side talking to Dad and kicks his foot gently against the glass to grab his attention.

“Help me with this,” he says when Aiden opens the door.

Aiden gives him an amused look, continuing to stand there like the ornery little shit he is. “You can’t carry it all yourself?”

“Of course I can,” Jonny scoffs. “But help me anyway.” He doesn’t wait for Aiden to respond, unloading one of the cases into his arms and nodding for him to follow as they make their way through the crowd to the beverages table.

“Yes, sir,” Aiden declares, like a smartass and follows behind Jonny.

“I like that better when Kaner says it.”

“Gross,” Aiden gags.

It’s what he deserves.

They get waylaid halfway through the yard as the caterers are in the middle of packing up their supplies and moving everything to the side of the house where their van is parked. As they’re making their way through clusters of people standing around, Jonny sets the water bottles down and turns to Aiden.

“You having a good time? Is Ivy?”

“Yeah, man, it’s great,” Aiden grins. He’s got on his championship cap, flipped backwards on his head. Jonny doesn’t think he’s seen it off Aiden’s head for more than five minutes at a time since the final horn buzzed on Game Six in Boston. “Your mom keeps telling me how happy she is for me and I’m starting to run out of ways to say thank you, though." 

Jonny laughs. That sounds just like Mom.

“I think Ivy wants me to buy a house up here. She loves the lake.”

“You should,” Jonny says. “There’s someone on the east side that’s selling, I think. Might want to snap it up.”

“God, don’t tempt me,” Aiden exhales. “If she even blinks in the direction of something she wants I have to get it for her. And then she tells me for hours after I didn’t have to. It’s... a whole thing.” He says it like he isn’t beaming about the mere mention of it. “You know it still feels surreal. The Cup, winning, everything.” 

Jonny reaches out and squeezes Aiden’s shoulder cap, pats at his back. “You earned it, bud.”

Aiden ducks his head a little, just like Patrick, at the praise and then rolls his shoulders, like he’s absorbing it as best as he can. “The first time better than the second? Or is the second better?”

“Not better, just different I guess.” Jonny shrugs. “I wouldn’t change anything knowing it got us both here.”

“Me too,” Aiden says steady and sure, like he means it more than anything.

“And if I haven’t already told you, I’m very proud of you, Ace.” He half says it just to watch Aiden fondly roll his eyes, and half because it’s true and it needs to be said.

“Yeah, Jon, you have told me.” Aiden smiles. “About seven hundred times. You’re just like your mom, you know that?”

Now that the area is mostly clear of the caterers, Jonny picks up his two packs of water and waits for Aiden to retrieve his also, and then stacks his packs on top of Aiden’s and slaps his back. “Well, in that case you can take these over there and drop them off. That’s where she wants them.”

“Okay, Mama’s boy!” Aiden calls as Jonny starts walking away.

It makes Jonny grin all the way down to the large dock platform where the boat is currently tied up and Patrick and Ivy are standing by a collection of empty Adirondack chairs. Patrick’s watching Ivy taking pictures of the lake view with the new camera she got from Aiden for Christmas.

“Hey baby,” he says once he’s behind Patrick and looping his arms around his middle.

Patrick leans back against him easily. “Hi, you. Get the water safely delivered?”

There’s no earthly way Patrick knew what Jonny was doing unless he was standing over here watching Jonny from up in the yard. Even after two years of being together, after all of this time, and everything they’ve lived through, it still thrills Jonny to know Patrick wants him this much. 

He wishes it hadn’t taken them as long as it did to figure out how they’ve always belonged to each other, but it’s like he told Aiden. He wouldn't change it, not really, knowing this is where they’d end up.

Jonny kisses the back of Patrick’s neck, right above his chain. He waits until he sees Aiden approaching from his perphirary before he says, “I had my lackey do it.”

“That’s what he’s there for,” Patrick says.

Aiden makes a face, looking to Ivy for support. “Do you see how they gang up on me?”

“It’s rough, I know,” Ivy teases and holds out her hand. “C’mere.”

She draws him to one of the open chairs beside her and they all sit and discuss their plans for the summer as time passes slowly around them. Occasionally other people will join them for small moments, asking about the championship, and if they can touch the Cup. In between all of that, Jonny learns Aiden and Ivy are going to spend the back half of July in Rome and Naples, before taking a wine tour in Tuscany as it’s been a lifelong dream of Ivy’s to visit Italy. Jonny tells them about how he and Patrick have a trip booked for Ireland in August and how Patrick’s excited to see the castles in Blarney and the Cliffs of Moher, but he’ll miss the warm, sunny weather of Cabo San Lucas. 

As everyone is joking about Patrick returning from Ireland paler than when he left, Jonny notices Patrick’s mindlessly twirling his engagement ring around on his finger. He’s been doing it ever since Jonny proposed, when he thinks Jonny isn’t paying attention, and every time he can feel their bond pulse twice as hard in double time, like Patrick’s so full of thoughts of Jonny, and _them_ , that he can’t contain it.

Jonny can’t help but reach his hand over and fit his palm to Patrick’s thigh, squeezing gently before moving down to his bare knee, just to feel Patrick’s skin against his own, to remind himself it’s all real.

Aiden’s in the middle of bitching about how he loves the sun, but the sun does not love him, and that’s a cruel twist of fate when his eyes zero in on Patrick’s hands and freeze. “Hey, what’s that ring on your finger?”

Patrick blinks and looks down at his own hands like he wasn’t aware of them and then holds up his left. “This?” 

“Yes,” Aiden says.

The way the tips of Patrick’s ears go immediately pink delights Jonny more than words can express. “Oh, just an engagement ring.”

Aiden’s eyes go wide. It reminds Jonny of his mom’s face from the night before. They were having a nice dinner with his parents in town when they popped the news to them during appetizers. Mom held Patrick’s hand on and off through the rest of their meal, as Dad asked about their wedding plans and told Patrick welcome to the family at the end of the evening.

“Just a...what?!" Aiden asks, voice rising. “When the fuck did this happen?”

“The morning after the Cup win,” Patrick says, and smiles bright and wide.

Jonny hopes he’s thinking about how they’d woken up hungover and groggy, dragging themselves into the shower to wake themselves up for another full day of partying. They’d stayed under the spray for almost an hour, slowly kissing and washing each other’s bodies. When they’d finally gotten out, they were both too worked up not to end up back in bed, Patrick riding Jonny until his knot popped and tied them together. In the aftermath, as they were pressed up against one another and licking at each other’s mouths, Jonny reached into his night stand and pulled out the ring he had waiting there. 

This wasn’t how he’d planned to ask. There was a written list of at least ten different ideas for his proposal hidden away in his sock drawer. Each proposal was more ridiculous and ostentatious than the last. And maybe that’s ultimately why Jonny didn’t pick any of them. As much as he believes Patrick deserves sweeping gestures and fantastical displays of affection, nothing could beat the moment where they were completely connected and laughing against each other’s lips in utter happiness and glee.

“Marry me,” he said and took Patrick’s hand to place the black platinum band with a row of diamonds in the center on Patrick’s finger. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

Patrick stared at the ring on his hand for a long beat and then into Jonny’s eyes. He cupped Jonny’s face in his hands, his thumb brushing tenderly over Jonny’s playoff beard and up to his cheek. “I can’t believe it took you this long to ask.”

Jonny barked out a laugh. “I was waiting for the right moment.”

“The right moment, huh? And that wasn’t the first day you kissed me?” Patrick asked.

“I didn’t want to rush you.”

Patrick leaned in and pressed his lips to Jonny’s as he clenched down around Jonny’s cock and they both moaned. “I would’ve said yes. That day or when we were eighteen or sixteen or probably even thirteen. It was always going to be yes, Jonathan.”

Jonny pressed his face to Patrick’s neck and felt like an entire universe was bursting to life beneath his ribcage, billions of stars, nebulas, and planets orbiting around his heart like it was the burning sun at the center.

They’d been late to meet up with the team that day.

“But technically I’ve had the ring since the first week we got together,” Jonny says. He looks at Patrick, who smiles back at him. They'd discussed that too, which resulted in more teasing as to why Jonny had waited, and the more he thinks about it the less he understands why. Seeing his ring on Patrick’s finger and the ring Patrick had gotten him later that week for Jonny’s own finger make him feel complete in a way he can’t describe.

“The first week! See this?” Aiden says, gesturing at them with a waving hand. “This is why I thought you two had been together for years.”

“Us?” Jonny asks. That’s news to him.

“Yeah. Because the both of you are fucking weirdly intense about each other. Although I guess maybe it’s not so weird now that I know why.” Aiden pauses to scratch his chin, still full of tawny facial hair he refuses to shave. “It's a little weird. Right?”

“I think it’s romantic,” Ivy says and reaches for Patrick’s hand to inspect his ring.

“You’re a mush.” Aiden rolls his eyes. He acts like he’s going to leave it there, but then he softens. “My mush.”

Ivy sticks her tongue out at him. “What he means to say is congratulations!” 

“Oh shit, yeah! Congrats, buds. C’mere!” he pops up out of his seat and pulls at Patrick first until he’s standing. Then he yanks him into a bear hug, murmuring something into his ear that makes Patrick’s smile widen. When Aiden draws back, he sees Jonny standing beside them and tugs him in, arms wrapping around both him and Patrick, squeezing tight.

They break apart to each hug Ivy individually and a lot less severely. After, she picks up her camera and shoots them a cheesy grin.

“You know what I think this means?”

“More pictures?” Jonny asks hesitantly.

They’d taken approximately seven thousand pictures yesterday and earlier this morning until Jonny felt like his eyeballs were beginning to bleed from trying not to blink for so long. He’s officially over posing for pictures.

“More _picturesssss_!” Ivy sings, throwing up one arm dramatically. She points for them to walk over to where the Cup is stationed on the dock, just off to the side from where they were sitting, and directs Jonny and Patrick to stand on each side of it. “Just the two of you first. Patrick, hold out your ring. Not like that, you’re not punching anyone. Fan your fingers, yes. Perfect.”

She snaps several pictures in a row, asking them to hold hands and put their arms around each other, to kiss, and gaze at each other adoringly until they begin cackling and making goofy faces at one another.

“Now the three of you,” she says, nodding for Aiden to join them.

Aiden whines, and as they’re bickering, Jonny catches Patrick staring fondly at his ring. He presses a kiss to the top of Patrick’s head and watches as Patrick looks up at him and mouths, ‘I love you.’ Jonny mouths, ‘Love you’ back, kissing his temple this time.

“Babe, I’m tired,” Aiden pleads.

“ _Babe_ , get your cute ass in there now,” Ivy says, waiting patiently for Aiden to go over and stand on Jonny’s left side. Once he’s in place, she continues, “Jon, go ahead and pull Aiden under your arm - yes, just like that. Okay everybody say ‘Champions’ on three...two...one!”

The flash goes off and Jonny doesn’t have to move, or even think, as he stands here with the Cup in front of him and his two favorite people beside him. He’s already smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thank you again to trademarkgiggle, thundersquall, and boodreaus for the absolutely amazing editing job they did on this chapter and throughout the whole fic. You helped make this story the best version it could be and I couldn't have done it without each one of you. Thank you all for being amazing. I'm not worthy! 💗
> 
> Also, big shoutout to everyone who read this fic, left kudos, comments, and sent me messages on tumblr. Your encouragement, support, and interest in this story has really touched me and I thank you so much for all of it!


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